As he muses over his driver line-up for the 2009
Formula 1 season,
BMW Motorsport Director Dr Mario Theissen has revealed who he believes are the top five drivers currently competing in the top flight – and perhaps tellingly,
Nick Heidfeld is not amongst them.
The German has endured a trying 2008 campaign to-date, struggling to warm his tyres up sufficiently quickly to generate one-lap pace out of them, thereby leaving him on the back foot for the races and seeing him out-qualified by world championship-leading team-mate
Robert Kubica eight-nil.
Indeed, in both Monaco and Magny-Cours this weekend, Heidfeld has failed to make the top ten shoot-out full stop, lining up respectively 13th and twelfth on the starting grid. That has seen him notch up just 28 points so far to Kubica's 42, and though the 31-year-old is believed to have a contract in his pocket for next year whilst Kubica does not, Theissen seemed to offer few guarantees.
“[Kimi] Raikkonen, [Lewis] Hamilton, [Fernando] Alonso and Kubica,” the German team principal replied when asked by Spain's
Diario AS Sport to list who in his opinion are
F1's top drivers, interestingly making no mention of Heidfeld, “and Massa close to them.”
On the subject of Alonso – recently linked to a seat alongside Kubica at the Munich and Hinwil-based concern in 2009 – Theissen expressed his admiration for the Spaniard former double world champion, but refused to elaborate on any such speculation.
“Obviously it is not good for a champion to have a bad season,” the 55-year-old acknowledged of Alonso's travails at
Renault this year, “but I will not talk about this or any other matter relating to contracts.
“We have an agreement with our drivers that prevent us from talking about it. We have a very clear policy to not say anything until August. We will make an announcement then.
"[Taking on a driver like Alonso] is not my style. I would prefer to have a young driver who then grows with the team to become an expensive champion.”
