Qualifying for the Malaysian Grand Prix didn’t go as well as I had hoped for BMW Sauber. For most of qualifying neither Heidfeld or Kubica looked fast enough to be any sort of a threat. Times at the top of the charts were always a minimum of a half second faster and sometimes up to a full second faster than them and from the begining when I had high hopes of a closer gap this GP, I quickly changed my thoughts and just hoped for even one to make it to Q3. Robert Kubica was the only BMW Sauber driver in Q3, but by that time the gaps to Brawn GP, Toyota, and Red Bull were still substantial and only a miracle could put him even on row 2. Kubica qualified 8th, but with the pre determined penalties to Sebastian Vettel and Rubens Barrichello he was bumped up to 6th on the grid.

Robert Kubica seems to the media at least to be fairly happy with his pace:

“I’m satisfied with what I was able to achieve today. Although we didn’t make any major changes after free practice the car was bottoming quite a lot, which made it unstable and therefore not easy to drive. I did what I could in the corners, but the straights are long here and give the drivers who are using a KERS a major advantage. I have to start on the dirty side of the track plus I have some cars with a KERS behind me, which will make the start very interesting.”

Nick Heidfeld ended up with another poor qualifying position, but it wasn’t entirely his fault. Throughout Q1 and Q2, Heidfeld was continuously matching and sometimes bettering Kubica’s times and looked fast. It was in the dying minutes of Q2 when he was in an elimination position that he met heavy traffic on his final flying lap. Watching his sector times you knew something was wrong as they were dismally slow.

Nick Heidfeld:

“Of course I’m very disappointed. I looked fairly safe in Q2 when I was seventh, but on my second quick run I had traffic on the out lap. Two cars in front of me and one behind meant that I couldn’t go at the pace needed to heat the tyres up, and then the important lap wasn’t good enough. After we did the comparison yesterday I was using the KERS today and it helped, especially in sector one where I was the fastest car for most of the time.”

On a lighter note, the team is one of the fastest teams without the two step diffusers. Looking at the qualifying chart, Brawn GP, Toyota and Williams are all in front of BMW Sauber. The only other team faster and without the controversial diffuser is Red Bull. We know that BMW Sauber have been working hard in the shop designing a new diffuser along the lines of the 2 step diffusers. This won’t be easy as it involves major changes to the car itself. The appeal hearing to determine whether these diffusers are legal will be held on April 14, just 3 days before the Chinese Grand Prix and being so close to that grand prix weekend we cannot expect anything to change for that race.

Mario Theissen filed a protest over the diffusers this weekend in Malaysia, but the protest was thrown out as the stewards stuck by their initial decision that the diffusers are legal. They will now join in the appeal in a couple of weeks and contest the results of both the Australian Grand Prix and the Malaysian Grand Prix. This is more of a formality to finally get clarification of the diffuser design rules and to determine the legality of the diffusers in question. The results of both grand prix will I’m sure stand and so they should.

In the mean time you BMW Sauber fans, the F1.09 remains one of the fastest on the grid with ‘normal’ diffusers.