Hamilton fastest on second day at Jerez

Hamilton crashed during qualifying for the European Grand Prix and was taken to a local hospital for check-ups. Other than some bruising, he did not sustain any injuries and was cleared to race the next morning.

At Jerez today, the McLaren driver ran a total of 96 laps, setting his fastest time of 1:19.670 in the morning.

The team prepared test driver Pedro de la Rosa around lunchtime to replace Hamilton, who was complaining of some chest soreness, but after lunch the Briton felt fit enough to continue his work.

Hamilton tested some new aero parts for his McLaren-Mercedes, with additional parts due to arrive at the Spanish track tonight, and will be tested tomorrow by de la Rosa.

Second fastest, some 0.8 seconds behind Hamilton, was Toyota's Ralf Schumacher, who concentrated on preparations for the Hungarian Grand Prix next weekend as well as some electronics testing.

Unlike teammate Franck Montagny, who yesterday tested for Toyota with traction control turned off, Schumacher today tested the car with all devices turn on and completed a total of 73 trouble-free laps.

"Today went quite well," the German commented. "We went through all the items we had planned, including plenty of set-up work.

"We also did lots of practice starts, because that is the area that we most need to improve. That went well and I'm quite happy with our progress.

"In the afternoon I did some long runs for further set-up comparisons and we completed our programme without problems."
 
Schumacher will be replaced tomorrow by teammate Jarno Trulli.

Williams test driver Kazuki Nakajima was third fastest, just 0.044 seconds slower than Schumacher. The Japanese GP2 race driver concentrated on long run testing, although his fastest lap was set on a low-fuel run, much like the rest of the top five drivers today.

Robert Kubica, in fourth, was the only driver to stop on track today, although this happened in the morning, a few minutes after the testing began, and his BMW Sauber team were able to get him back on track in no time. The Polish driver completed a total of 104 laps in the day.

Renault's Heikki Kovalainen also ran a total of 104 laps, setting the fifth fastest time of the day, after a trouble-free test of new aerodynamic components.

"We had a good day of work today, testing the latest aerodynamic developments for the car," the Finn said. "We did a lot of laps, completed a lot of tests and got a lot of data."

Christian Silk, Renault's chief test engineer added: "We planned a more substantial programme for Heikki today, in order to pursue our performance development programme. 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."

Kovalainen will be replaced tomorrow by test driver Nelson Piquet Jr, while Mark Webber, who did the work for Red Bull Racing today - including some 2008 regulation work, will be replaced by Sebastien Buemi.

James Rossiter, who tested for the Super Aguri team today, will move aside for Takuma Sato, whereas Honda's Rubens Barrichello will continue testing at Jerez tomorrow.

The Brazilian set the slowest time of the day, however his programme centred on comparison work between various aero packages. He ran a standard aero package in the morning, while in the afternoon he tested various upgrade solutions.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                    Time       Laps
 1.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes   (B)  1:19.670    96
 2.  R.Schumacher  Toyota             (B)  1:20.540    73
 3.  Nakajima      Williams-Toyota    (B)  1:20.588    86
 4.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber         (B)  1:20.709   104
 5.  Kovalainen    Renault            (B)  1:20.881   104
 6.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault   (B)  1:21.071    77
 7.  Rossiter      Super Aguri-Honda  (B)  1:21.315    96
 8.  Barrichello   Honda              (B)  1:21.444    80