De la Rosa Fastest in Practice 1

McLaren currently sit two points behind their rivals with 18 available from the final race at the Shanghai circuit, and Spanish test driver de la Rosa displayed their pace by finishing almost two seconds ahead of his closest rival.

His time of 1:33.563 put him 1.840 seconds ahead of Rubens Barrichello, who posted a fast late lap in the session as he began preparations for his final race for Ferrari before departing for BAR-Honda.

Ricardo Zonta finished third fastest for Toyota, 1.910 seconds behind de la Rosa, with Finn Kimi Raikkonen fourth fastest in the second McLaren and teammate Juan Pablo Montoya sixth, behind the second Ferrari of Michael Schumacher.

Fernando Alonso finished seventh fastest in his Renault with Mark Webber eighth for Williams, David Coulthard ninth for Red Bull and Jenson Button, recovering from a viral infection, in tenth for BAR-Honda.

In hazy, foggy conditions and temperatures of 23 degrees Celsius de la Rosa posted the first time of the session and with half an hour gone he led Zonta by more than a second with a lap of 1:35.362.

Karthikeyan went off at turn 14, as did Barrichello, as the session hit its midpoint, then Massa went off at turn nine, Fisichella spun his Renault into the gravel at turn two and Raikkonen went off at turn 14.

All 24 of the drivers took the opportunity to complete full laps during the session with Zonta and Red Bull Racing test driver Vitantonio Liuzzi completing the most on 24.

Pos  Driver         Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:33.463               20
 2.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:35.303  +    1.840   13
 3.  Zonta         Toyota            (M)  1:35.373  +    1.910   24
 4.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:35.481  +    2.018    5
 5.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:35.494  +    2.031   12
 6.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:35.521  +    2.058    9
 7.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:35.605  +    2.142   10
 8.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:35.945  +    2.482   13
 9.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:36.089  +    2.626   10
10.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:36.096  +    2.633   11
11.  Pizzonia      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:36.208  +    2.745   12
12.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:36.829  +    3.366   11
13.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:36.866  +    3.403   13
14.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:37.119  +    3.656   24
15.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:37.123  +    3.660   11
16.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:37.143  +    3.680    5
17.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:37.490  +    4.027    8
18.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:37.688  +    4.225    7
19.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:37.764  +    4.301    9
20.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:38.308  +    4.845   15
21.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:39.088  +    5.625   11
22.  Kiesa         Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:39.687  +    6.224   21
23.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:40.724  +    7.261   14
24.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:40.787  +    7.324   13

All timing unofficial