De la Rosa keen for more dry mileage

The Spaniard, who is gearing up for his first full F1 season since 2002, has shown good speed in testing at both Valencia at Jerez , but is keen to maximise his dry mileage to get back to peak fitness after limited testing opportunities with McLaren last year.

"I really need to do laps in the dry because I felt pretty rusty in the morning when I did two runs on dry tyres," de la Rosa told AUTOSPORT. "I feel that I need a lot more.

"This circuit is a lot more demanding than Valencia with more medium and high-speed corners so I feel it would be good for me physically to get dry running with a lot of g-force to get my body back to full speed. I will get there, but the earlier the better."

Despite his frustration, de la Rosa was pleased to get a day of wet running under his belt, as he has not driven on intermediate or wet tyres for around 18 months.

"It has been a good day in terms of being able to run the three types of tyres," said de la Rosa. "I'm very pleased to have been able to do runs on intermediates and wets because it has been a long time since I have had the chance to.

"However, we don't want any more wet running now. We've had enough!"

De la Rosa ended the day second fastest, 0.817s off pacesetter Jaime Alguersuari. But despite being pleased with the early performance of the Sauber-Ferrari C29, he has yet to get a real idea of where it stands in the competitive order.

"I'm very happy with the balance of the car, but having said that I am completely at a loss as to here we are compared to our competitors," de la Rosa told AUTOSPORT.

"It is impossible to say. I've tried to read the lap times, but this year it is virtually impossible to know what level of fuel other people are running.

"You just have to get your own personal conclusions compared to the car of the previous year to see what improvements you've made on the car. But that is all you can do - we will have to wait for Bahrain Q1."

De la Rosa will drive again tomorrow after team-mate Kamui Kobayashi ran on the opening two days of the Jerez test.