Winter testing has just gotten underway for BMW so its a bit too soon to start firing chief designers and writing off the season but their new car is not drawing many accolades from its drivers. The F1.08 finished its first day of testing in Valencia, Spain behind the 2007 BMW driven by rookie tester, Marko Asmer. Day 2 was similarly poor. Could BMW be 2008’s Team Honda - from contenders to back markers in less than a year?

Veteran driver Nick Heidfeld has been candid in his assessment of the car, describing it as suffering from a balance problem. He believes they are behind in performance relative to their progress at this time last year. There are less than 50 days left before the F1 circus arrives in Melbourne, Australia to start the 2008 season so BMW will have its work cut out for itself.

The question is, can they get back on track? Fundamental problems were discovered with the Honda design last winter and the team nearly self destructed in its efforts to solve the problem. Experienced designers were sacked and at one point nearly everyone’s head was potentially on the chopping block. Can BMW stay focused and find a solution quickly enough to avoid falling to the midfield?

The answer is yes, probably. Nothing is ever certain in F1 but the team have a solid infrastructure, a state of the art wind tunnel and the budget to find their way forward. They also have two competent pilots in Heidfeld and Robert Kubica who know what they need from an F1 car to be competitive.

Waiting for BMW to stumble are Renault and WilliamsF1. Both teams are hungry, have at least one top driver, and know how to win in F1 - something BMW still needs to accomplish. There is no taking prisoners in F1 - just ask Honda. For all their recent success, BMW could find itself being mauled by rivals it easily had the measure of last season.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, January 24th, 2008 at 10:31 am and is filed under F1 Testing, Formula 1. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.