De la Rosa Fastest in Practice 1

Run under surprisingly cloudy skies and lower than expected temperatures of 28 degrees, the session saw limited running early on but all 25 cars had set a competitive time by the end.

De la Rosa's lap of 1:27.882 put him 0.571 seconds ahead of McLaren teammate Kimi Raikkonen, who posted his time with less than 20 seconds of the session remaining.

Mark Webber finished third fastest for Williams, with a time just 0.883 seconds behind the session leader with Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta in fourth place.

Jenson Button claimed fifth for BAR-Honda to push the third McLaren of Juan Pablo Montoya down to sixth place with championship leader Fernando Alonso down in seventh.

World Champion Michael Schumacher, keen to continue his improving form with Ferrari here this weekend, finished eighth fastest despite a few troubles during the session.

Takuma Sato, under pressure to start producing results for BAR-Honda, finished ninth fastest and Giancarlo Fisichella, in the second Renault, completed the top ten runners.

De la Rosa caused the session to be halted for four minutes after his McLaren stopped out on track but he still ended the session with the fastest time.

The dusty track failed proved tricky for Schumacher, who made a mistake at turn three then spun across the gravel at turn 12 late in the session.

Webber also took to the gravel in his Williams after running wide at turn 10 and Vitantonio Liuzzi lost control at turn eight, one of the corners tipped by the drivers to be most difficult.

Nick Heidfeld, in the second Williams, went off at turn one as the drivers began to push harder in the closing stages of the session before De la Rosa stopped out on track.

The session was re-started with seven minutes left to run and Barrichello was caught out at turn three, where he spun with three minutes of the session remaining.

Pos  Driver        Team                  Time                  Laps
 1.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:27.882               16
 2.  Raikkonen     McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:28.453  +    0.571   11
 3.  Webber        Williams-BMW      (M)  1:28.765  +    0.883    8
 4.  Zonta         Toyota            (M)  1:28.810  +    0.928   25
 5.  Button        BAR-Honda         (M)  1:28.968  +    1.086   12
 6.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes  (M)  1:29.183  +    1.301   10
 7.  Alonso        Renault           (M)  1:29.283  +    1.401   13
 8.  M.Schumacher  Ferrari           (B)  1:29.766  +    1.884   11
 9.  Sato          BAR-Honda         (M)  1:30.050  +    2.168   12
10.  Fisichella    Renault           (M)  1:30.106  +    2.224    9
11.  Massa         Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:30.368  +    2.486   11
12.  R.Schumacher  Toyota            (M)  1:30.563  +    2.681   12
13.  Trulli        Toyota            (M)  1:30.785  +    2.903   11
14.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW      (M)  1:30.847  +    2.965   10
15.  Villeneuve    Sauber-Petronas   (M)  1:30.847  +    2.965   12
16.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:31.008  +    3.126   10
17.  Barrichello   Ferrari           (B)  1:31.294  +    3.412   11
18.  Coulthard     Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:31.306  +    3.424   11
19.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Cosworth (M)  1:31.353  +    3.471   20
20.  Monteiro      Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:32.147  +    4.265   15
21.  Kiesa         Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:32.501  +    4.619   22
22.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota     (B)  1:32.886  +    5.004   12
23.  Albers        Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:33.474  +    5.592   13
24.  Doornbos      Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:35.367  +    7.485   12
25.  Toccacelo     Minardi-Cosworth  (B)  1:36.411  +    8.529   15

All timing unofficial