Italian Grand Prix - Practice

Weather: extreme rain in the morning, sunny in the afternoon, 19-23°C Air, 15-29°C Track Monza (IT). After the first free practice session was literally washed out by the rain, the second 90 minute session for the Italian Grand Prix was very busy. The BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers, Robert Kubica and Nick Heidfeld, had a trouble free day and were second and third fastest respectively on the highspeed circuit in the Monza Royal Park. Robert has a special helmet design for the Monza race showing the Italian flag alongside the Polish national colours. Robert moved from Poland to Italy when he was only 13 years old to pursue a karting career. Robert Kubica: BMW Sauber F1.08-05 / BMW P86/8 1st Practice: no timed lap / 2nd Practice: 2nd, 1:23.931 min "We could not run our programme as planned due to the bad weather conditions - especially in the morning. The conditions improved in the afternoon, although the drying track was still damp. With the conditions changing on every lap over the course of the session, evaluating the results is quite difficult. I hope we have better weather tomorrow." Nick Heidfeld: BMW Sauber F1.08-07 / BMW P86/8 1st Practice: no timed lap / 2nd Practice: 3rd, 1:23.947 min "The lap times don't look too bad, which was also the case when we were here for testing. But the balance of my car isn't as good yet as it was at the test. Certainly this has something to do with the lack of rubber on the tarmac after today's heavy rain. What happens with the weather over the weekend will prove crucial." Willy Rampf (Technical Director): "As we were testing here in Monza last week, most of the set-up work and the tyre evaluation has been done before the weekend. Today, our main concentration was on some fine-tuning for the car's set-up. I'm confident we should be quite competitive for the rest of the weekend." For further information please visit the media website www.press.bmw-motorsport.com (press releases, press kits, images, TV footage) and the official team website www.bmw-sauber-f1.com (car, season, Race Club, team updates).