World Championship leader Lewis Hamilton was the pace-setter on the second day of testing at Jerez, as BMW joined the seven teams that began testing here on Tuesday.

Almost fully recovered from his accident during qualifying last Saturday, and an eventful race on Sunday, Hamilton focused on preparatory work for next week's race at the Hungaroring.

There was initial concern when the English youngster complained of soreness around his chest and Pedro de la Rosa was put on stand-by. However, Lewis soldiered on, completing a total of 96 laps.

The hot and dusty conditions in Jerez provided similar track conditions that will be experienced at the Hungaroring, as Lewis and the test team worked through set-up and aero programmes for the race. A number of new components were tried out on the MP4-22 today, with further parts on their way from Woking for tomorrow, when Pedro de la Rosa will be back on duty.

Hamilton's test pace, and his apparent fitness will be a welcome morale booster for the team ahead of tomorrow's meeting of the World Motor sport Council in Paris.

Second quickest was Ralf Schumacher in the Toyota. The German practised a different start procedure, carried out work on set-up and suspension and tested aero parts in preparation for the Hungarian GP.

"Today went quite well," said Schumacher, "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. We're working hard to improve the package and we hope that can continue. Our performance has clearly been stronger at recent races, including even last weekend's difficult European Grand Prix. We missed out on a result there but now we will push for a better return next week in Hungary."

"That was another useful day of work in these hot conditions," added Test Team Manager, Gerd Pfeiffer. "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."

Kazuki Nakajima continued for Williams as the Grove outfit seeks to build on its well-deserved fourth-place finish at the Nurburgring.

"We carried on with our general set-up and tyre work preparations ready for Hungary," said Test Team Manager, Dickie Stanford. "Unfortunately, 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," he continued, "there were just two red flags in the whole session. Tomorrow will be our last day at Jerez, for which Alex (Wurz) will take over from Kazuki to finish our programme."

Despite a technical problem at the very start of the day BMW, which had Robert Kubica on duty, was able to complete its scheduled programme which included testing new aero parts for the forthcoming races, as well as working on the set-up and new suspension components.

The Polish driver completed 103 laps on his way to posting the fourth best time of the day. He continues here tomorrow when he will continue with a similar programme, which will include more set-up work for Hungary and development work on systems.

A more substantial programme was planned for Renault's Heikki Kovalainen today, with the Finn testing new aerodynamic components as part of the team's on-going performance development. He enjoyed a trouble-free day and was able to complete over 450 km without any technical problems.

"We had a good day of work today," said the Finn, "testing the latest aerodynamic developments for the car. We did a lot of laps, completed a lot of tests and got a lot of data. The job now is to work through that and analyse it, in order to continue making progress ahead of the race in Hungary. We are moving forward all the time, and I think we can be confident of a strong performance there."

"We planned a more substantial programme for Heikki today, in order to pursue our performance development programme," added 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."