De la Rosa ensures favourites tag for McLaren

Alastair Moffitt

The Spaniard set a lap of one minute 18.589 seconds to beat his Toyota counterpart Ricardo Zonta by 0.375secs.

McLaren's Juan Pablo Montoya and Kimi Raikkonen were third and fourth, and easily the fastest race drivers.

Montoya, 1.722 seconds behind De la Rosa, was 0.132secs ahead of Raikkonen with Ralf Schumacher's Toyota fifth.

The McLaren drivers all produced impressively fast multi-lap runs as they did their homework on the car and tyre choices ahead of qualifying and the race.

Toyota's Jarno Trulli was sixth fastest, ahead of world championship leader Fernando Alonso's Renault.

Spaniard Alonso, who has warned that his team will struggle to compete with McLaren on raw pace at Silverstone this weekend, was 0.6secs behind Raikkonen.

Alonso is focusing on limiting the damage to his championship lead he has a 24-point advantage over Raikkonen with Ferrari's Michael Schumacher a further five points adrift.

The reigning world champion was fastest at one point during the session, but ended it 10th overall, behind the two Red Bulls of Vitantonio Liuzzi and David Coulthard.

Schumacher blotted his copybook with a mistake more familiar to fans in the grandstands than a seven-time world champion.

The Ferrari driver lost concentration coming into the pits at the end of first practice and failed to notice Nick Heidfeld braking sharply in front of him.

In a scene familiar on motorways across the country, Schumacher braked too late and slammed into the back of his countryman's Williams.

Schumacher was fortunate not to damage his car too severely but admitted afterwards he was to blame.

The 36-year-old, who has started 222 grands prix and is known as the safest pair of hands in the pitlane, said: "There was small damage on the nose but it was not that big.

The varying fuel loads and tyres used by the teams throughout the session make it very difficult to divine too much about pre-race form from practice times.

However, Raikkonen said: "It is going well and it is a good start for the weekend.

"The car was not perfect, I was not very happy with it, but the lap time seems to be okay. It is only the first day, but it looks like we are in good shape."