De la Rosa on Top at Silverstone

With heavy rain hitting the British track in the morning, three teams - BAR, Renault and Toyota - decided to postpone the start of their programmes until tomorrow, with BAR and Toyota working at Monza instead.

The three teams are planning to work at Silverstone tomorrow, depending on the weather.

Spaniard Pedro de la Rosa finished on top of the times for his McLaren team after benefitting from running in the dry early in the morning.

De la Rosa, the busiest man on track with 63 laps at the wheel of the MP4-20, focussed, like most of the drivers, on tyre testing for the British Grand Prix, as this week's test will be the last time the teams can run at the British track before the July event.

McLaren worked also with Colombian Juan Pablo Montoya, who completed just 22 laps to finished over seven tenths behind de la Rosa, despite the Spaniard running with a high-downforce set-up during the day.

In the afternoon de la Rosa covered just four laps in the appalling conditions, lapping in one minute 36 seconds.

Nick Heidfeld was third quickest for his Williams team, who are aiming to solve their problems with the launch system, which has seen them making poor starts since the start of the year.

Heidfeld worked alongside Nico Rosberg, slowest today in the second BMW-powered car. The young test driver was involved in one of the few incidents of the day when he went off at the Copse corner, without any consequences.

Red Bull's Christian Klien and Ferrari's Luca Badoer were fourth and fifth quickest respectively, with Jordan's Narain Karthikeyan sixth fastest after 35 laps.

Testing continues tomorrow.

Today's Times:

Pos  Driver        Team-Engine         Tyres  Time     Laps
 1.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:19.739   63
 2.  Montoya       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:20.475   22
 3.  Heidfeld      Williams-BMW         (M)  1:22.044   45
 4.  Klien         Red Bull-Cosworth    (M)  1:22.563   32
 5.  Badoer        Ferrari              (B)  1:22.930   23
 6.  Karthikeyan   Jordan-Toyota        (B)  1:23.283   35
 7.  Rosberg       Williams-BMW         (M)  1:24.097   40

All Timing Unofficial