De la Rosa back home

Pedro de la Rosa has returned home to the McLaren team after being confirmed as the teams official test and reserve driver for 2011.

Gary Paffett will remain with McLaren despite his involvement with the Mercedes-Benz team in DTM.

Following stints with former teams Arrow's and Jaguar, de la Rosa first joined McLaren in 2003 and was the teams test driver up until he returned to racing with the Sauber team for the 2010 season, however he was dropped after 14 races in favour of Nick Heidfeld.

During the winter he was Pirelli's test driver as the new tyre manufacturer entered Formula One following the departure of Bridgestone.

With that now complete the veteran driver has agreed to return to McLaren.

“Of all the teams I’ve driven for in Formula One, Vodafone McLaren Mercedes is the one that really feels like home,” de la Rosa told formula1.com.

“So I’m very excited about returning to the team to help push the development of the MP4-26. Lewis and Jenson already have an extremely positive and productive working relationship - so, building on and adding to their existing rapport, I'm aiming to do everything I can to help them get even more from our car, our engineers and our technical resources back at the McLaren Technology Centre.”

'With two world champion race drivers in Lewis and Jenson, and two of the world's most experienced and capable development drivers in Pedro and Gary, we feel we have a quartet of talent that is absolutely second-to-none,” McLaren team principal Martin Whitmarsh added.