BMW Sauber boss Mario Theissen has vowed to get to the bottom of his team's 'disappearing act' at Sunday's Hungarian Grand Prix.
Theissen departed Budapest at a loss to comprehend why the cars so badly under-performed at the Hungaroring, relegating BMW Sauber to third in the constructors' championship.
Although title-contender Robert Kubica qualified fourth, the Pole collected the team's sole point in Hungary as he finished a lowly eighth.
After being hampered in qualifying and starting from 15th, Nick Heidfeld at least managed to claw his way up to 10th.
But in the space of two short months, BMW Sauber have slipped from race winners to also rans, allowing Ferrari and McLaren to resume their customary scrap for the titles.
A worried Theissen said: "Our performance on Friday was reasonable, the performance on Saturday in qualifying was good to very good, but our performance in the race was completely different.
"It looked like we weren't there, that the race went on without us.
"At no point did Robert or Nick come close to the lap times they did in qualifying, and I have to admit I don't know the reason yet.
"What we certainly will look into is the equation of car, set-up, tyres and track conditions.
"If you look at Robert's qualifying time he should have been able to fight at the front, but in reality, in certain phases of the race, he was the slowest car on the track.
"What happened in the race was completely unexpected."
Dismissing suggestions the Hungaroring is not a BMW track, Theissen told formula1.com: "In the last two years we've been on the podium.
"So there must be another explanation behind this disappointing performance. We were not just slow, we were also inconsistent.
"Like at Ferrari, we also witnessed one car was doing much better than the other. There was something out there we did not understand."
Although BMW Sauber are 21 points adrift of constructors' leaders Ferrari and 10 behind McLaren, Theissen is not about to give up on a season that appears to be fading fast.
"Based on the performance and points yield of the Budapest weekend, you'd say we could not regain second place," Theissen added.
"But naturally we will not twiddle our thumbs, as we still have developments in the pipeline - aerodynamic as well as mechanical.
"We will definitely not stop the development of this year's car because of one unsatisfactory result."
No comments:
Post a Comment