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Turkish GP Quali: Kubica 5th, Heidfeld only 9th
By BMW Sauber F1 Team May 10 2008
As has been the case in every qualifying session of the season to date, Robert Kubica has out-qualified his team-mate, Nick Heidfeld. The Pole secured a promising fifth position on the grid while Nick had to settle for ninth. .
As usual, the BMW Sauber F1 Team pairing easily advanced to the second knockout phase of qualifying. Robert and Nick both made just one assault, with Robert proving to be the faster of the two drivers. On his second timed lap, the Pole crossed the line in 1:26.761 minutes to secure 7th position, while Nick had to abort his second flying lap as he was hampered by traffic. On his third, however, the German clocked a lap time of 1:27.107 minutes to finish eleventh. The fastest time (1:25.994 minutes) was set by Ferrari's Felipe Massa.

Eliminated: Kazuki Nakajima, Nelson Piquet, Sébastien Bourdais, Giancarlo Fisichella and Adrian Sutil.

In the second knockout phase, Robert once again proved to be clearly quicker than Nick. Both BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers made two assaults, with Robert clocking a personal best time of 1:26.129 minutes to secure second position on the time sheets. Nick was half a second slower than his team-mate but with his 1:26.607-minute lap he finished ninth, thus also advancing to the top-ten qualifying phase. This time, Ferrari's Kimi Räikkönen set the fastest lap time by crossing the line in 1:26.050 minutes.

Eliminated: Nico Rosberg, Rubens Barrichello, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel and Timo Glock.

In the top-ten shootout, Robert again out-qualified his German team-mate. In his second effort, the Pole secured fifth position by lapping the Turkish Grand Prix circuit in 1:28.390 minutes. Following the first two split times of his second assault, Nick appeared to be on his way to setting a lap time just as fast as Robert's but in the third sector he lost out dearly and at the end of the day he set a personal best time of 1:28.881 minutes, thus qualifying ninth.

Result: 1st Felipe Massa, 2nd Heikki Kovalainen, 3rd Lewis Hamilton, 4th Kimi Räikkönen, 5th Robert Kubica, 6th Mark Webber, 7th Fernando Alonso, 8th Jarno Trulli, 9th Nick Heidfeld, 10th David Coulthard.

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