On a hot and sunny day at the Jerez circuit in Southern Spain, McLaren rookie Lewis Hamilton continued his team’s preparatory work for next week’s race at the Hungaroring, finishing the session at the top of the timesheets. Today’s hot and dusty conditions provided similar track conditions that will be experienced at the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend and therefore helped Lewis and the test team work through set-up and aero programmes for the upcoming race.

Second quickest here today was the Toyota of Ralf Schumacher who completed a total of 73 laps to finish nine tenths of a second off the McLaren’s pace…

“That was another useful day of work in these hot conditions,” said Gerd Pfeiffer, Test Team Manager. “This morning we went through some different set-ups and suspension settings. Ralf also carried out some aero comparisons and practised starts. We are trying out a different procedure in order to improve our performance off the line and this test gives the race drivers the chance to learn about that. We will have to wait for race conditions to quantify its success but the main aim is to be more consistent. We also did some brake work and Ralf put in some long runs in the afternoon for further set-up comparisons. Tomorrow Jarno will take over for the last day of the test.”

Williams test driver Kazuki Nakajima continued to pound the pavement for the Grove based squad with a total of 83 laps for third place overall, despite two red flags and a routine engine change…

"We carried on with our general set-up and tyre work preparations ready for Hungary today,” said Dickie Stanford. “We lost about two hours due to a scheduled engine change, but still managed to complete a considerable number of laps. Running was barely hindered; there were just two red flags in the whole session. Tomorrow will be our last day at Jerez, for which Alex will take over from Kazuki to finish our programme."

BMW joined the test today with Robert Kubica finishing fourth after 104 laps, the team having a very successful day. The scheduled programme was completed, and this included testing new aero parts for the forthcoming races, as well as working on the set-up and new suspension components. Kubica will continue with a similar program tomorrow, which will include more set-up work for Hungary and development work on systems.

Heikki Kovalainen was next up in fifth overall….

"We planned a more substantial programme for Heikki today, in order to pursue our performance development programme,” explained Christian Silk. “After a short set-up programme this morning, Heikki evaluated a number of new aerodynamic components in preparation for the upcoming races. As we expect at this time of the year, the day was trouble-free from a mechanical point of view and we succeeded in collecting a lot of useful data."

Mark Webber was in the cockpit of the RB3 today and the car ran reliably all day, allowing the team to get through its planned program, which focused on aerodynamics and testing some mechanical set up changes. The team also carried out some 2008 regulation work and Mark finished sixth overall. Eighteen-year-old Sebastien Buemi will be back in the driving seat tomorrow for the third and final day of the team’s scheduled test.

Meanwhile, Super Aguri’s test driver James Rossiter continued driving the SA07 where a chassis set-up program alongside a Bridgestone Potenza tyre test in the morning was on the agenda for the day. Finishing second last to Honda’s Rubens Barrichello, the young Brit then worked on the running and evaluation of 2008 control systems and associated set-up options in the searing heat of the afternoon.

Pos	Driver	Constructor	Time	Laps
1	Lewis Hamilton	McLaren	1m19.670	90
2	Ralf Schumacher	Toyota	1m20.540	73
3	Kazuki Nakajima	Williams	1m20.588	83
4	Robert Kubica	BMW Sauber	1m20.709	104
5	Heikki Kovalainen	Renault	1m20.881	104
6	Mark Webber	Red Bull Racing	1m21.071	75
7	James Rossiter	Super Aguri	1m21.315	94
8	Rubens Barrichello	Honda	1m21.444	79