“I am not happy with the result,” the 23-year-old bemoaned afterwards, “as today I had the chance to finish on the podium. We had a problem during the second pit-stop. I lost two or three positions and returned to the track behind Nick. When it started raining he went into the pits to change tyres.

“I could not do the same as it would have cost too much time because I was directly behind Nick, so it would have meant us coming into the pits together. Also I had no information about the weather as I had problems with my radio. We gave away points today. However, that's racing.”

Nevertheless, between them Heidfeld and Kubica notched up a further eleven points for the third-placed Munich and Hinwil-based outfit, leaving BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen and technical director Willy Rampf justifiably pleased at the end of the weekend.

“It was a turbulent race,” acknowledged Theissen, “both immediately after the start and during the final laps. Nick was involved in a collision in turn one after the turmoil at the start and, like Robert, lost some positions. As a result, both cars dropped out of the points' positions.

“After that the pit crew had problems connecting the nozzle during Robert's second pit-stop, but finally we recovered from these problems. Nick, his race engineer and our strategists took the right decision two laps before the end of the race by changing to wet weather tyres. [Following] the team's ninth podium and Robert's sixth place, with five races to go the team has 107 points, six more than in the entire 2007 season.”

“This was the most amazing race I have ever experienced,” agreed Rampf. “Up until two laps from the end everything was quite normal, but then things changed dramatically when it started raining.

“Nick radioed to the pits that he wanted to change tyres. He was the first driver to take this decision. The pit crew reacted quickly, and from then on he was the fastest man on the track and made up many places. He finally finished third.

“For Robert things, unfortunately, went wrong during the second pit-stop when we had a problem when refuelling, which cost him several positions. However, overall it was a very good result for our team.”