MONTREAL, Canada, June 8, 2008 (AFP) - Nick Heidfeld was visibly thrilled after following his teammate Robert Kubica to a BMW Sauber one-two in Sunday's Canadian Formula One Grand Prix.

Kubica's win was both his and the Swiss-German team's maiden grand prix triumph, but the popular Heidfeld was just happy to have capitalised when McLaren's Lewis Hamilton and Ferrari's Kimi Raikkonen were forced to retire after a pit lane crash.

"Obviously I'm very happy with second position," Heidfeld said. "It was a good race for me."

Heidfeld has been a stalwart of the BMW Sauber team under its various guises and despite not being the man to take the chequered flag, he was pleased that the team had broken their F1 duck.

"I have been with team since the beginning. It is great to have a victory with Robert and also a one-two. It shows we are still going in the right direction," he added.

"It shows in the last three years we have achieved our goals which we did set quite high. Now for next year our target is to fight for the championship. We are working flat out for that. A big thanks to the team."

Heidfeld has been thoroughly outshone by Kubica this season and has struggled to adapt to the softer new tyres his team favours.

He will now hope that second place at the Circuit Gilles Villeneuve, a result he also achieved last season, will kick-start an improved run of form.

The crumbling track was the main talking point pre-race in Canada but Heidfeld was satisfied with the late repairs that were made after qualifying.

"On one side it was not what an F1 circuit should look like, but it was a lot better than I expected. Yesterday in qualifying was even worse than today in the race, so the repairs they did today were good."