De la Rosa fastest at Jerez

De la Rosa, at the wheel of the new MP4-22, set a best time of 1:20.001, just edging the Williams FW29 of Alex Wurz, who made his debut with the new car unveiled last Friday.

Spaniard de la Rosa worked alongside Lewis Hamilton, fourth quickest after 111 laps. The Briton will be joined by world champion Fernando Alonso tomorrow.

The Williams team showed promising form in their first test with the new Toyota-powered car, with Wurz finishing just 0.035 seconds behind de la Rosa. The Austrian's day, however, finished early when he stopped on track at the Angel Nieto corner with just a couple of minutes of the session left to run.

German Nico Rosberg also took to the track in the new Williams, covering 62 laps on his way tot he ninth fastest time of the day.

Today's session showed how close the 2007 season promises to be, with a total of 11 drivers covered by seven tenths of a second.

Pole Robert Kubica was again close to the top of the times with the BMW Sauber F1.07 despite completing only 46 laps during the day. Teammate Sebastian Vettel was 11th in the second car from the German squad.

The Ferrari team worked with two F2007 cars for the first time, the second chassis making its debut today in the hands of Luca Badoer, who tested alongside Kimi Raikkonen.

The Italian driver had to replace Felipe Massa at the last minute, after the Brazilian was unable to test as he was feeling unwell.

There were only three red flags during the session, the first caused by Red Bull's Mark Webber, who managed only 27 laps in the team's RB3. Teammate David Coulthard enjoyed a better day, although he finished over a second off de la Rosa's pace.

Toyota's tester Franck Montagny and Wurz caused the other two red flags of the session.

Briton Jenson Button had a productive day of work with the new Honda RA107, covering nearly 100 laps. Button was seventh fastest while test driver Christian Klien finished as slowest on his first day of work with the new car.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.001  108  
 2.  Wurz          Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:20.036   72  
 3.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.159   46  
 4.  Hamilton      McLaren-Mercedes     (B)  1:20.233  111  
 5.  Raikkonen     Ferrari              (B)  1:20.245   86  
 6.  R.Schumacher  Toyota               (B)  1:20.254   55  
 7.  Button        Honda                (B)  1:20.371   99  
 8.  Montagny      Toyota               (B)  1:20.409   46  
 9.  Rosberg       Williams-Toyota      (B)  1:20.525   62  
10.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:20.666   62  
11.  Vettel        BMW-Sauber           (B)  1:20.715   51  
12.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:21.021   48  
13.  Piquet        Renault              (B)  1:21.264  117  
14.  Zonta         Renault              (B)  1:21.392   67  
15.  Webber        Red Bull-Renault     (B)  1:21.858   27  
16.  Klien         Honda                (B)  1:22.083   35  

All Timing Unofficial