Ferrari once again showed their dominance by finishing 1 - 2 in the second practice session today. Raikkonen who had gearbox problems in session 1 and only did 3 laps, had it repaired successfully in time for this second session.

Massa who was setting the fastest lap times early ended up with the 3rd fastest time on the day at 1:27.682. It was Lewis Hamilton who snuck into 2nd spot on a late fast lap just .036 seconds back of Raikkonen.

Hamilton is quick, but the McLaren still looks slow and clumsy through the slow speed corners suffering still from poor mechanical grip.

David Coulthard was a surprising 4th and didn’t have a crash with anyone, but Mark Webber did. Webber spun after riding the curbs and planted his car head on into the wall. This car is fragile. The impact wasn’t that great, but the damage to the car was pretty substantial. It was a curious crash because he buried the front end axle deep in the wall, but when bounced off, the front nose seemed totally in tact.

Robert Kubica who was typically quiet in practice finished with the 6th fastest time.

Although Hamilton pulled off the 2nd fastest time, the car doesn’t look great especially in the slow speed corners. I saw Lewis and Heikki lock the breaks a couple of times and saw lot of steering wheel correction, certainly more than Ferrari or BMW-Sauber.

Fernando Alonso was pretty quiet through practice, much quieter than in Spain obviously and maybe they aren’t quite where they were 2 weeks ago.

Friday Practice 2 Times

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Today BMW Sauber revealed their F1.08 to a large crowd of media at BMW Weld in Munich. In canada where I am, noon local time is 6am my time and I was up watching the live streaming video of the launch. Yes, BMW Sauber is my team and I was looking forward to this and the future of this team.

I have captured most of this video and split it into 7 smaller files featuring different aspects of the presentation. They can be seen below.

The team is now at a full staff of 730, 430 in Hinwil and 300 in Munich. This has lead to more resources and were able to invest much more in development of this car. As Tech Director Willie Rampf said, it is a ‘radical evolution.’ He went on to say quite a bit about the car focusing on aerodynamic efficiency and balance leading to greater stability and improved downforce at the rear end.

A lot of work went into saving on weight throughout the whole car as well as mandated changes particularly the standard electronics. In 2007, BMW Sauber were noted for a faulty gear box and so a lot of work went into the gearbox environment especially when rules state it must last for 4 race weekends.

The front wing is the most radical and noticeable change so far. It is much larger, but thinner than the F1.07. On the topic of wings, there is a new wing arrangement above the engine cover intended to generate more downforce while improving air flow to the rear wing.

Mario Theissen:

“It will certainly be difficult because the two teams in front of us are the strongest and most experienced in F1.”

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