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Kubica 3rd on the European GP grid
By BMW Sauber F1 Team August 23 2008
BMW Sauber driver Robert Kubica delivered a fine qualifying performance in Valencia and secured third position on the grid for tomorrow's European GP. Nick Heidfeld also experienced a successful afternoon and qualified eighth. As rain had been forecast during qualifying, both BMW drivers went out early in the first knockout phase to set a first competitive lap time in the opening stages.

While Robert Kubica had no problems whatsoever on his way to making it the second knockout phase, Q1 proved to be true thriller for Nick Heidfeld. Robert made two runs and finished fifth with a personal best time of 1:38.347 minutes. Nick also made two runs but on the first lap of his second he was impeded by another driver and had to stay out for a second flying lap. But in the end, he too advanced to Q2 by finishing 14th, with his 1:38.738-minute lap. The fastest time of Q1 (1:37.948 minutes) was set by Toyota's Jarno Trulli. 

Eliminated: Jenson Button, David Coulthard, Giancarlo Fisichella, Rubens Barrichello and Adrian Sutil. 
 
The second knockout phase of qualifying once again turned out to be a thriller for Nick. When everybody had made their first runs, the German held 14th position and was the very last to go out for his second effort. During this attempt, however, the German completed a fantastic lap and secured third position on the timesheets. With his 1:37.859-minute lap, he was exactly as fast as second-placed Ferrari driver Felipe Massa. Robert set his personal best time of 1:38.050 minutes on his first run and failed to improve on his second. Nonetheless, this time was good enough to secure sixth. Sebastian Vettel (Toro Rosso) set the fastest time of Q2 by crossing the line in 1:37.842 minutes.      
 
Eliminated: Kazuki Nakajima, Fernando Alonso, Timo Glock, Mark Webber and Nelson Piquet. 

In top-ten qualifying, Robert Kubica impressed with another fine performance. On both runs the Pole was among the top four, and with his 1:39.392-minute lap the Pole secured third position on the European Grand Prix grid. Unlike Q2, Nick wasn't quite able to match the pace of his team-mate and qualified eighth with his 1:40.631-minute lap. Nonetheless, both BMW Sauber F1 Team drivers are in a promising initial position for securing a good result in tomorrow's race. Pole position was secured by Ferrari's Felipe Massa in 1:38.989 minutes.  
 
Result: 1st Felipe Massa, 2nd Lewis Hamilton, 3rd Robert Kubica, 4th Kimi Räikkönen, 5th Heikki Kovalainen, 6th Sebastian Vettel, 7th Jarno Trulli, 8th Nick Heidfeld, 9th Nico Rosberg, 10th Sébastien Bourdais.
 

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