At the F1 arena, a close battle is pretty evident between the Scuderia and the Woking team. The championship score could very well attest to that fact. But underneath that powerful championship score is a close rivalry among F1 teams. There’s the Renault team on one corner and the BMW Sauber on the other.
Speaking of BMW Sauber, the team is eyeing to win a grand prix for the very first time next season. This goal was enunciated after finishing as runners-up in this season’s Formula One championship, team boss Mario Theissen said on Tuesday.
"The end of this season has seen us wrapping up the development phase of the BMW Sauber F1 team," he said in an interview. "This phase has run according to plan and has seen us make it into the top three in a short space of time. Next year we will be looking to record our first win. The great progress we have made this year, in particular, has shown that we have got the direction of our development work and our working processes spot on.”
Theissen said BMW now had 420 employees at the team’s Hinwil factory from 275 when they took a majority stake in the Swiss-based team in 2005, Reuters reported. The workforce in Munich remained unchanged at just under 300.
BMW Sauber, with 50 points ahead of Renault and 103 adrift of Ferrari, would have been third overall had McLaren Mercedes not been stripped of all the constructors’ points for the espionage controversy.
"We set ourselves the goal of fourth place and a much bigger points total this year, so third was a great bonus," said Theissen. "The powers that be then promoted us further, but it is a pretty empty second place in our eyes. We are well aware that four cars have been faster than us and we want to beat them on the track, not in the corridors of power."
Theissen added the high point of the team’s season was the Canadian Grand Prix, with Germany’s Nick Heidfeld finishing second and Polish driver Robert Kubica emerging unscathed from an horrendous crash.
Additionally, the team said it will launch the the F1.08, its race car for the 2008 season, in sMunich on January 14. The event is set to happen at the new BMW vehicle delivery center in the immediate vicinity of the BMW Tower and Olympiapark in the German city.