De la Rosa, who raced at the Bahraini Grand Prix, was filling the reserve role for his British team as Alex Wurz was elevated into Juan Pablo Montoya’s race seat due to the Colombian’s ongoing injury concerns.

But the demotion did nothing to hinder the Spaniard’s spirits as he pushed hard during the day’s first hour-long run to finish on top with a time of 1:21.060.

Behind the leading MP4-20 was Toyota’s third man, Ricardo Zonta, with a 1:21.174.

In third was Jenson Button who was at the head of, what he hopes is, a BAR resurgence.

The Briton sat out a majority of the session but headed out for a late run and was immediately on the pace.

His final time was an impressive 1:21.805, his team-mate Takuma Sato also strong with a 1:22.945 for sixth.

Ferrari’s Michael Schumacher was also in the mix with a time of 1:22.085 for fourth.

The Scuderia had embarked on an intensive testing programme since the Bahraini Grand Prix and the extra effort appeared to have reaped results.

Jordan were surprisingly competitive with Narain Karthikeyan worrying the Saubers with a 1:24.512 for P16.

Like at previous rounds, Renault elected to sit the opening run out leaving everyone guessing as to their pace.

While the team are still seen as the outfit to beat, the question is how close are their rivals?