McLaren praise 'fantastic' de la Rosa

De la Rosa was drafted in as a late replacement for Juan Pablo Montoya and although he has not been guaranteed the seat for the remainder of the season, he has a good chance of keeping it if he impresses.

The Spaniard was just outqualified by teammate Kimi Raikkonen, and finished two places behind him in the race, but McLaren F1 CEO Martin Whitmarsh has no qualms at all about the performance.

"The race pace of de la Rosa was as good as Kimi here, and that's a fantastic start for Pedro," said Whitmarsh. "The hardest job for him was coming through that qualifying format and he did a good job in the race.

"To come fifth and seventh is a rather unthrilling experience for the team, and you have to be critical about tyre choice and our car in terms of development, but at the same time you look for the positives.

"De la Rosa did a very good job here, and he has set the scene to go to Hockenheim and do a good job there."

Whitmarsh believes de la Rosa's performance was compromised by being stuck behind Williams' Mark Webber in the early stages of the race, and then Jacques Villeneuve after the first stop.

"I don't think it was one of our greatest weekends. I think we didn't qualify well enough to do what we needed to do in the race.

"After de la Rosa was being Webber and Jacques he was out of contention. Did he race well?

"Well, apart from losing that place to Webber, he did very well. Kimi did a solid job, I don't think he had his greatest afternoon and nor did we."