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ON THE SIDELINES

April 30 - May 6, 2008
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BMW Sauber's worst performance of the F1 season has taken some of the joy out of a strong start.

The German team surrendered the constructors' championship lead to Ferrari after both drivers finished in the position they started at the Spanish Grand Prix.

Robert Kubica, coming off a second straight podium, drove well to finish only 5.694 seconds back of winner Kimi Raikkonen of Ferrari in fourth.

Nick Heidfeld was another story.

The German driver, who trailed Raikkonen in the overall drivers' standings by three points coming to Circuit de Catalunya, moved into seventh from ninth after the start.

However, Heidfeld had no choice but to incur a 10-second penalty following Heikki Kovalainen's violent crash and refuel when he wasn't allowed to.

"The safety car period destroyed our strategy," team principal Mario Thiessen said. "We literally missed getting Nick into pit lane before the safety car by a few seconds."

Heidfeld, who worked his way up from last place at that point to finish ninth, wasn't pleased. He had been running fifth behind Kubica before pitting.

"I tried to save fuel and delay my pit stop, but in the end it was the choice between running out of fuel on the track or getting a stop-and-go penalty," Heidfeld said.

Kubica is third in the overall standings with 19 points, 10 fewer than Raikkonen. Heidfeld, kept out of the points for the first time this season, is fifth with 16.

Red Bull's David Coulthard and Timo Glock of Toyota met with race stewards on Sunday after being involved in an on-track incident.

Glock, running 10th at the time, attempted to pass Coulthard from the inside only for the Scot to close in and touch his Toyota counterpart, nearly taking off the nose.

Glock pitted for a new front with 12 laps left. "He was slow on his out lap. He left me a bit of space and then closed and I crashed into him," Glock said. "It destroyed my front wing and that was it."

Coulthard, who had a frustrating Spanish Grand Prix, saw it differently. "I got whacked by (Adrian) Sutil going into turn No. 4 and picked up some light damage to the side of the car," Coulthard said. "After my pit stop, I took a defensive line into turn No. 4 and 5 to show Glock that I knew he was there, but he hit the rear of my car and punctured a tyre."

Coulthard, who qualified 17th for the second straight race, returned to the pits to change the rear left tyre, which was barely hanging on, and finished 12th. Glock was 11th.

No action was taken by race officials. Coulthard also picked up a $6,265 fine for failing to show for the pre-race drivers' parade.







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