[2][3] It was driven by Poland's Robert Kubica and Germany's Nick Heidfeld, both retained from 2008.

After the team's impressive performance in 2008, winning their first race and coming third in the championship, much was expected of them.

BMW made a promising start to the season, with Kubica running second at Melbourne and lapping faster than the leader before retiring in a collision,[4] and Heidfeld finishing second at the chaotic Malaysian GP.

Towards the end of the season things began to look up, with the cars managing fourth and fifth at Spa-Francorchamps and Kubica finishing second at Brazil.

The engine cover promoted both BMW's ConnectedDrive and EfficientDynamics technology at different races.