The ‘very good progress' displayed by
Formula 1 veteran
Nick Heidfeld of late was pivotal to the experienced German retaining his drive at BMW-Sauber in the top flight in 2009, Dr Mario Theissen has revealed.
Heidfeld's seat at the Munich and Hinwil-based outfit was the subject of fevered speculation season-long until it was announced yesterday that he, team-mate
Robert Kubica and test driver Christian Klien are all to remain on-board next year [see separate story –
click here].
For much of the summer, the 31-year-old struggled woefully to get a handle on
Bridgestone's 2008-spec Potenza rubber, failing to warm his tyres up sufficiently quickly in qualifying – and consequently ending up on the back foot come the races.
Whilst Kubica has not lined up lower than eleventh this year to-date, in Hungary Heidfeld failed to make it beyond even Q1, in a car that was at the time considered to be the third-quickest on the grid. The former has on average been the fifth-fastest driver in qualifying in the highest echelon this year, the latter just ninth.
Since the Canadian Grand Prix in June, however, the man from Mönchengladbach has tallied the equal third-highest points total of any driver – behind only
F1 title contenders
Lewis Hamilton and
Felipe Massa, and four more than Kubica – and sits behind only defending world champion
Kimi Raikkonen in terms of number of fastest laps this season.
That kind of form – allied to his clear overtaking prowess, with most notably a brace of superb double passes during the British Grand Prix at
Silverstone – convinced BMW to keep hold of him, Theissen affirmed.
“We wanted to decide about our drivers in the summer,”
BMW's motorsport director told German news agency
SID, admitting that the decision was postponed to see if Heidfeld could recover from his mid-season slump.
