De la Rosa tops the times at Paul Ricard

The Spaniard was continuing development work on the latest specification Mercedes-Benz engine that had so impressed him in work ahead of the Australian Grand Prix.

After its encouraging performance in Melbourne, de la Rosa was using more revs to evaluate its reliability as he set a best time of 1:04.231 .

That time was just three hundredths of a second faster than Robert Doornbos in the Red Bull Racing-Ferrari, who joined his fellow Michelin runners in working on Imola-specification tyres for the San Marino Grand Prix later this month.

"Yesterday I suffered a lot from gearbox problems and today in the morning too, but the afternoon went well and I took a bit of a risk for the last run," Doornbos told autosport.com.

"It is nice to get that quick time in at the end of the day."

Heikki Kovalainen was third fastest in the Renault despite completing just 11 laps during the day. The Finn broke the suspension of his car after going over a kerb.

Gary Paffett was fourth quickest and Giancarlo Fisichella fifth as he worked on an engine programme.

Toyota test driver Ricardo Zonta put his team's controversy surrounding Mike Gascoyne behind him to work on tyre construction and compounds for Imola, having left Olivier Panis to work on the long runs with the tyres selected on Wednesday.

Vitantonio Liuzzi made his scheduled appearance in the Red Bull Racing but, after causing two red flags for suspected mechanical problems, he ended the day seven tenths slower than Doornbos.

The other red flag was caused by BMW's Robert Kubica, who stopped at 1030am with a mechanical problem.

Today's times:

Pos  Driver        Team                      Time     Laps
 1.  de la Rosa    McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:04.231  147
 2.  Doornbos      Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:04.262  118
 3.  Kovalainen    Renault              (M)  1:04.274   11
 4.  Paffett       McLaren-Mercedes     (M)  1:04.279  127
 5.  Fisichella    Renault              (M)  1:04.380  104
 6.  Zonta         Toyota               (B)  1:04.655  133
 7.  Liuzzi        Red Bull-Ferrari     (M)  1:04.914  169
 8.  Villeneuve    BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:04.961   50
 9.  Kubica        BMW-Sauber           (M)  1:05.398  123
10.  Panis         Toyota               (B)  1:05.867   47

All Timing Unofficial