Chassis: F1.08
Engine: BMW
Team Principal: Mario Theissen
Technical Director: Willy Rampf
F1 Debut: Bahrain 2006
F1 points: 272
Championships won: 0
2008 Stats
Championship Position: 3rd
Wins: 1
Pole Positions: 1
Fastest Laps: 2
Podiums: 11
Points: 135
Drivers
Robert Kubica
Race starts: 40
F1 debut: Hungary 2006
Wins: 1
Pole Positions: 1
Podiums: 8
Points: 120
2008 Stats
Wins: 1
Pole Positions: 1
Fastest Laps: 0
Podiums: 7
Points: 75
Nick Heidfeld
Race Starts: 150
F1 Debut: Australia 2000
Wins: 0
Pole Positions: 0
Fastest Laps: 2
Points: 200
2008 Stats
Wins: 0
Pole Positions: 0
Fastest Laps: 2
Podiums: 4
Points: 60
BMW Sauber had another remarkable season with a good increase in performance over the last campaign. On the negative side, they didn’t make more of what became an unexpected title challenge.
Since BMW took over the Sauber team progress has been fast. Many thought that BMW wouldn’t make it by themselves, but they have proved many wrong. The first bright decision was taking over Sauber, who already had very good F1 facilities, including the best wind tunnel in F1.
BMW’s generous budget has allowed them to make better use of these facilities. In the past, the Sauber team couldn’t afford to keep the top range facilities running 24/7, which affected the pace of their previous cars’ development. The performance levels were less than they could have potentially been.
Team boss Mario Theissen has done things step-by-step rather than making lots of changes, and spending too much at once. BMW Sauber is a prime example of how a team with top facilities and budget should be operated. Outfits like Honda and Toyota could do much worse than to lead by their example.
When the team were still called Sauber in 2005, the car was over 1.5 seconds off the pace. In 2006 (the first season with BMW on board), this was slashed straight away to 0.75-1.0 seconds. For BMW’s first season in charge this was a great effort. In 2007 came another substantial improvement.
The car was now around 0.5-0.8 seconds off the pace, and the clear third fastest car in F1 behind giants McLaren and Ferrari. They were now podium contenders.
Their target for 2008 was the toughest yet. The aim was to try and close the gap to McLaren and Ferrari, and win their first GP. Overall they required 0.5 seconds worth of extra performance to be able to do this.
This would be the hardest 0.5 seconds to find. Overtaking the other midfield teams was a relatively straight forward task. However, McLaren and Ferrari are the best two teams in F1. Finding extra time over them would be very tough challenge.
Winter testing wasn’t a very promising start. The car went onto the track for the first time and they were some major issues. The car was quite a long way away off the pace. To the team’s credit there was no panic or frantic arguments about the way forward.
They plugged away at solving the car’s problems, and ensured that they were going to be competitive come Melbourne. Nobody really knew exactly where they would end up on the grid in Australia.
Come qualifying they surprised everyone, as Kubica fought tooth and nail with Lewis Hamilton for pole position. He almost got it, but a front row was a very satisfying result for the team. In race conditions, the car seemed very quick too and Nick Heidfeld finished second.
There were then fantastic podiums for Kubica in the next two rounds (Malaysia and Bahrain), where he finished second and third, respectively.
The BMW wasn’t a match for McLaren or Ferrari but crucially the team were now able to capitalise whenever McLaren or Ferrari had an off day. They weren’t quite close enough to achieve that in 2007.
After three rounds, BMW Sauber had 30 points. Better still, they were leading the Constructors championship, on the virtue that they had been the most consistent team so far.
Technically, the car seemed to be a good improvement over the 2007 car (once the pre-season problems were ironed out). The car had better aerodynamic efficiency, and the level of downforce was more consistent through the corners.
On the 2008 car, there wasn’t a stone left unturned, and there were new details popping up everywhere, including various winglets and add-ons all around the bodywork. The team opted to extend the length of the wheelbase, which contributed to a better airflow around the car.
The front end of the car in particular was a noticeable improvement. From the evidence of the first three races of the season, all the changes BMW had made seemed to be the right choices.
In Spain and Turkey, it looked as though they had perhaps slipped back to their 2007 form, where they followed the McLarens and Ferraris home. However Monaco and Canada were very big races for the team. In Monte Carlo, Kubica excelled in the damp conditions and finished in second.
Canada became the scene for the team’s first race victory. Canada was arguably BMW’s strongest performing track last season. The track is very stop-and-start so there is less emphasis on aero performance than on other tracks. This takes away a bit of McLaren and Ferrari’s advantage. This seemed to be the case again in 2008.
Kubica drove a fantastic qualifying lap and joined Lewis Hamilton on the front row. In the actual event, it turned out that McLaren and Ferrari were a bit quicker over the race distance.
Then in typical Montreal fashion, a safety car changed everything. All the front runners opted to pit and complete chaos occurred. Lewis Hamilton took himself and Kimi Raikkonen out next to pit lane red light. Massa and Kovalainen had problems in their pit stops and fell a long way down the order.
This meant that this was now BMW Sauber’s race to lose. They kept their heads and finished 1-2. This was a brilliant result for the team. Although it needs to be said, this win was more down to their quicker opponents completely losing their heads. The race wasn’t won due to BMW Sauber’s outright pace. Despite that fact, credit should still go to the team, as they didn’t put a foot wrong.
Robert Kubica was now ahead in the Drivers Championship by four points and BMW Sauber were right with Ferrari in the Constructors. BMW Sauber may not have been multiple race winners but they got the best out of their car every weekend, and were not making any mistakes. The team were doing a brilliant job.
This didn’t to apply to McLaren and Ferrari, who both had a couple of indifferent weekends and a few silly errors from their drivers.
This breakthrough victory turned out to be a big turning point in the season for the team. From this point onwards the team’s pace slid dramatically. Instead of continuing to gain on McLaren and Ferrari, they were being sucked in rapidly by the incredibly tight midfield group behind.
By the end of the season, BMW Sauber were no longer the clear third fastest team on the grid. Renault and Toro Rosso were definitely quicker than BMW throughout the final third of the season.
Toyota were also ahead of BMW when they were at a track that suited them. Hungary for example was one of these tracks.
There were a number of explanations for this drop-off in pace. BMW may have decided to focus more of their efforts into 2009, once reaching their 2008 target of winning their first race.
All the other teams around them were still putting a lot of work into their 2008 machines. Another explanation is that BMW Sauber didn’t fully understand their 2008 car.
The developments they did put onto the car weren’t making the car any quicker. Along with this, BMW Sauber were apparently concerned by Nick Heidfeld’s lack of pace (mainly in qualifying).
Therefore, they worked hard to alter the car to suit his style more. This was taking over time that the team should have been using to upgrade the car to make it quicker, and support Robert Kubica’s title challenge.
A mixture of those three explanations were very likely to be true. BMW Sauber know 2009 is a big opportunity to steal a march on Ferrari and McLaren, and they don’t want to miss that chance.
With Heidfeld being a fellow German the team clearly cared about his success, (they formed a strong relationship when he drove for Williams BMW in 2005) and of course teams with less experience, can get developments on the car wrong from time to time (as, in fact, can the experienced teams).
In conclusion, all this de-railed Robert Kubica’s unexpected title challenge. Despite the car dropping off the pace Kubica still kept up with the championship contenders. This was down to a mixture of great results for Kubica when the opportunities came, (third in Valencia and second in Fuji) and the front runners continuing to make errors and not maximising their advantage.
With two rounds of the championship to go Kubica was staggeringly only 12 points behind points leader Lewis Hamilton. BMW Sauber were still in the Constructors Championship race too. In the end, both championships were lost in China, as the team had a poor weekend there.
Looking back at the season, BMW Sauber will feel delighted with the progress they have made. On the other hand ,there will be this nagging feeling at the back of their minds. This season could have ended up even better.
What if they hadn’t put so much focus on 2009 car so early? What if the latter 2008 car developments had been made better than they were? What if the team had taken Robert Kubica’s title challenge a bit more seriously and put more focus on it.
The end result could have been that come Brazil, BMW Sauber could have been in the mix for both championships.
BMW Sauber have clearly earmarked next season as their championship challenging season. Further down the line they may regret not making more of the chance they had this season.
It’s not very often that the two front-running teams have a season, where they make so many mistakes and lose a big chunk of points. They left the back door open and BMW Sauber stood in it as opposed to walking right on in.
Admittedly, the 2009 development dilemma was a very hard one for all the teams. It reportedly caused quite a bit of heartache throughout the F1 paddock.
If BMW Sauber have the fastest car in 2009 then they won’t have any regrets about 2008. If their 2009 car doesn’t meet the race winning standard, then they may see as 2008 as a great chance which wasn’t taken. Only time will tell which one of those feelings will apply.
Driver-wise, Robert Kubica drove brilliantly throughout 2008. He was very quick and made far fewer errors than the McLaren and Ferrari drivers. One of the big reasons for his performance in 2008 was that the BMW complimented his driving style far easier than the 2007 car.
Robert Kubica is a very aggressive driver and likes to brake late. The 2008 car was very stable and had a very good front end. This allowed him to make full use of this trump card.
He was brilliant at extracting every single tenth out of the car and then some. At times he took the car further than it deserved to go.
This was particularly true in the second half of the season, when BMW fell away from McLaren and Ferrari. Valencia was a track where Kubica was at his strongest, as it was a fast track full of heavy braking zones. That was Kubica territory.
Robert Kubica changed to a more experience race engineer this season (who previously worked with Anthony Davidson at Super Aguri). The relationship appeared to work extremely well.
This may have been another contributor to Kubica’s success this season. The current spec of Bridgestone tyres required an aggressive warm-up lap to get the best out of them over a single quali lap.
Kubica’s aggressive style ment that this was no issue for him and he excelled in quali trim this season. This excluded a couple of occasions in the final third of the season where BMW got the tyre pressures a bit wrong.
Nick Heidfeld didn’t have as strong a season as Kubica, but he still did enough to warrant a BMW seat for next season. The main issue which compromised him was qualifying.
Heidfeld’s driving style is very different to Kubica’s. He is a much smoother type of driver. There is far less aggression in his driving style. He therefore found it very different to generate enough heat in the tyres in preparation for a single quick lap.
This left him down the grid at some events. He qualified as low as 16th in Japan. On the other side of the coin, Heidfeld’s race pace was very good, and he grabbed points scoring opportunities with both hands.
Heidfeld actually finished second on four occasions in 2008 (Australia, Canada, Britain and Belgium after Hamilton’s penalty). Despite Kubica seemingly having a far better year, Nick finished only 15 points behind him. All in all, Heidfeld’s season wasn’t as bad as many fans made it look.
Final Verdict
BMW Sauber should be very happy that they were able to improve again in 2008. They got 11 podiums this season compared to just two in 2007.
They got their first pole position and win. They won 135 points as opposed to 101 in 2007.
Looking back at the stats, they will safely be able to say that they met this season’s targets. Another big strength of their season was their lack of errors during race weekends. Their trackside operation was very good. In terms of errors, they did a much better job than McLaren and Ferrari.
The minus points are that BMW Sauber ought to be disappointed at how they slipped back in the second half of the season. In the first part of the season, they were only around 0.3-0.4 seconds off the ultimate pace. In the latter stages of the season, this time grew to around 1.0 second per lap slower.
BMW Sauber need to investigate whether they made the right decisions or not in the latter parts of the season. This was an outside chance for them to win both championships, had they perhaps gone about things slightly differently.
I am sure that BMW Sauber will take more positive vibes from 2008 than negative ones. It is possible that in the future those negative vibes may come back to haunt BMW Sauber.
Follow the links to read my other 2008 reviews so far.
Force India
Honda
