Young driver test: Ricciardo tops first day of action

The dust from the final round of the 2010 World Championship has barely settled down, but all the teams were back in action today for the Young Driver Test.

This two-day session started on Tuesday on the Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi.

Daniel Ricciardo set the fastest lap of the day at the wheel of the winning Red Bull RB6. He consistently improved his time to finally clock a best 1’39’’616 – just 0.3s shy off this year’s pole position (1’39’’394 set by Sebastian Vettel).

Oliver Turvey was second fastest for McLaren Mercedes while Antonio Félix da Costa was third fastest for Force India. This was an impressive performance from Félix da Costa considering he was driving a Formula One car for the first time. He had a mistake-free day and improved his time in the final minutes of the session.

Sauber’s reserve driver Esteban Gutierrez clocked the fourth fastest time, ahead of Williams’ Dean Stoneman.

Rio Haryanto – who also had very little experience driving an F1 car - was at the wheel of a Virgin VR-01 this morning and set a best time of 1’49’’439. The more experienced Jérôme d’Ambrosio took over in the afternoon and was unsurprisingly quicker.

Driving an HRT car, GP2 Series Champion Pastor Maldonado set a rather impressive time, ahead of Ferrari’s reserve driver Jules Bianchi.

There will be changes tomorrow with Gary Paffett driving for McLaren, Sergio Perez on duty for Sauber and Buurman replacing Félix da Costa in the Force India seat.

Maldonado will switch from HRT to Williams, while d’Ambrosio will switch from Virgin to Renault.

Kral and Valsecchi will be in action for HRT. Luiz Razia will get to drive the Virgin and Vladimir Arabadzhiev will take the wheel of the Lotus.