Former champion Jacques Villeneuve hopes to make amends to Sauber at the Nuerburgring on Sunday after costing the Formula One team a fistful of points in Monaco last weekend.

"I look forward to making up for the bad race in Monaco," the Canadian said.

"We are a third of the way through the season already and I think we now have a good working pace with the team so we must be able to build on this."

Peter Sauber described his drivers' performance in Monaco as "the most depressing thing that a team can experience" after Villeneuve tried to overtake team-mate Felipe Massa and instead took them both out of the points.

They were running sixth and seventh at the time. Both Villeneuve and Massa were summoned to the team's Hinwil factory to discuss what happened.

"I have told both drivers that I don't want to discuss this issue with them in the paddock, because there are too many emotions at the moment," Sauber said.

"So we will meet in Hinwil this week to discuss the situation. They don't normally come to the factory after the races but this was a very serious situation and we have to speak together."

A team spokesman said there would be no further comment from Sauber about the incident and would not confirm whether the meeting had happened.

Villeneuve said he had spoken to Massa after the race and explained what had happened.

¤ Vitantonio Liuzzi will drive for Red Bull at this weekend's European Grand Prix at the Nuerburgring before handing over to Christian Klien in Canada. Liuzzi was brought in originally for three races as a replacement for Klien, who performed well in the first three, alongside the team's main driver David Coulthard.

¤ BMW declined comment on a newspaper report yesterday that it may buy the Swiss F1 team Sauber. Citing F1 sources, Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper reported BMW was considering buying the Sauber team as a way to boost its racing profile. It said such a deal would cost BMW at least €150 million. "The fact is that we are negotiating with Sauber about providing motors from 2006. Everything else is speculation on which we don't comment," a BMW spokesman said.

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