The 2008 launch season continues with another big name revealing its car to the public. Yesterday, BMW – who finished second in the Constructor’s Championship in 2007 – launched the BMW F1.08 at the BMW Welt in Munich to the usual fanfare of clichés, business speak and postulation.
“Certainly, we are very confident to turn the battle in front of us in to a battle of more than two teams this year,” BMW’s Head of Motorsport, Mario Theissen announced. BMW’s ability to run with the numbers 3 and 4 on their cars, denoting their position in the previous year’s Championship, comes at the expense of McLaren, who were excluded from last year’s Constructor’s table after being found guilty of cheating. Whilst the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team might have successfully got both drivers to finish joint second in the Driver’s Championship on 109 points apiece, the team itself scored no points and therefore carry the numbers 22 and 23 despite having had the fastest car and the strongest package all season.
In spite of McLaren’s pace last year and their undoubted determinedness to prove their detractors wrong in 2008, Theissen believes that BMW have turned a corner in development and can now take the fight right to the top step of the podium.
Since the acquisition of the Sauber team in 2005, BMW have been working hard to establish themselves as a front runner and key player in the sport and the team boss believes that they have come a long way in the last two and a half years. He insisted that the ramp-up phase the company has been going through was completed successfully at the end of last year and that all the pieces are now in place to mount a strong challenge to Ferrari and McLaren.
Theissen did concede that a full-on title challenge would be difficult this year and dismissed talk of a BMW championship victory as premature. He didn’t dismiss talk of race victories so readily, however: “It will certainly be difficult, because the teams in front of us are the strongest and most experienced, so it means we have to improve more than they will. Since we’ve made good progress in the past two years, I am confident we can do it again and close that gap.”
The team have retained the services of both Nick Heidfeld and Robert Kubica for 2008.
Since the purchase of Peter Sauber’s Swiss-based Formula One team, BMW has invested heavily on turning themselves in to a Formula One force to be reckoned with. The operation in Hinwil has increased from 275 personnel to 430 while the Munich base has approximately 300, giving the team a headcount of 700; it’s not quite on par with McLaren or Ferrari but in such a short space of time it shows a dedication second to none and Mercedes’ main rival in the production car stakes might finally hear the German anthem played for themselves for a change rather than for the competition.
