De la Rosa praises Alonso's fast learning

The Spaniard, who has been part of the McLaren-Mercedes line-up since 2003, said that he had not expected his countryman to gel with the squad so rapidly given his relative lack of pre-season acclimatisation time.

"For Fernando it is incredible how quickly he has learnt everything about the team, when you consider he only had one day testing in December last year and hasn't really had a long time with Vodafone McLaren Mercedes, but he has already won a race," said de la Rosa.

McLaren's decision to sign Alonso and Lewis Hamilton for 2007 meant it was starting a season with a completely fresh driver line-up for the first time since Ron Dennis took over in 1980. But de la Rosa said that the new drivers had slotted straight into the organisation.

"It doesn't feel, working with them or seeing how they are getting on with their engineers and the team, like these have been their first races for the team," he said.

"Fernando learns anything very quickly, and Lewis has been around the team for some time."

De la Rosa added that he was pleased McLaren had so far prevented the widely-anticipated Ferrari dominance of the new season.

"We have been very solid from the start and we've proved people who thought that Ferrari were going to walk away with the first few races wrong," he said.

"I think we have surprised many people. Fernando and Lewis have done a very good job.

"We are where we deserve to be, but we have to focus on making sure we maintain, well improve, our performance as a team."