Lewis Hamilton led a McLaren 1-2 as nine teams continued their preparations for the 2008 season at Jerez today.

Following the unfortunate incidents which overshadowed the recent test at Barcelona last week, there were no repeats today with officials and fans fully aware that the eyes of the world, and the FIA, are upon them.

The focus for McLaren, which also had Pedro de la Rosa on duty, as aerodynamic development, with new components arriving from the McLaren Technology Centre for the start of the session and mid-way through the day. Between them, the Woking duo completed 177 laps, finishing over 0.25s ahead of BMW's Robert Kubica. Tomorrow, Hamilton is joined by Heikki Kovalainen.

In the perfect weather conditions, Kubica and Nick Heidfeld did 91 and 94 laps respectively, completing the schedule as planned. Both drivers worked on the setup of the car trying various solutions and system checks, with the aim of helping the team further understand the new car. However, the work on the aerodynamics was affected by strong winds in the afternoon. Both drivers also completed a number of practice starts.

Tomorrow the focus will be on improving the setup of the F1.08, concentrating on aerodynamic solutions and the braking system.

In case proof was needed that Williams has resolved the front wing problem which dogged it in Barcelona, Kazuki Nakajima posted the fourth fastest time, just 0.499s off Hamilton's pace. The Japanese driver completed 93 laps, while his partner, Nico Rosberg, was the busiest man today, completing 125 laps of the Spanish track.

With the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne just over a month away, Renault - like its rivals - is entering the busiest phase in its winter testing programme with three tests planned for the next three weeks.

Today's warm and sunny conditions allowed the French team to complete a full day's running with few interruptions. The team was again running two R28s with Nelson Piquet joined by fellow Brazilian, Lucas Di Grassi, who was enjoying his first test with the new car.

The programme for Piquet involved basic set-up work this morning as the team continues to improve the car's balance. He then carried out some long runs later in the day and showed some good consistency.

di Grassi spent the morning carrying out some performance tests as he familiarised himself with the new car before he too completed some longer runs. It was the chance to add further miles to the car, which again showed good reliability.

"Another good day and lots of mileage for the car and myself," said Piquet. "The more I drive the car, the happier I feel and it's all good preparation for the first race. The car ran well today and we did not have any problems, which meant we could do a race distance in the afternoon."

"It's my first time driving a Formula 1 car on a proper track," added di Grassi, "and for sure the car feels really good and it was a really impressive experience. I'm really happy with my day, we did a lot of laps, the pace was consistent, and I felt comfortable with the team and the car. We did one long run in the afternoon which went well, and I'm looking forward to working with the team later this week. "

"The two main objectives of the programme were to complete a race distance with Nelson and to get Lucas comfortable in the car as he had not run an R28 on a full circuit test before," said Christian Silk. "Both these were completed without any problems and both cars enjoyed a trouble-free day. Nelson did a bit of performance work in the morning, improving the set-up of the car, and completed a race distance in the afternoon without any major issue, so that was a good day for us."