The conditions were tricky for all the drivers, but especially for one who was racing in the full glare of public attention for the first time.

But what was really interesting about his race for me was learning that there is an art to backmarkerdom, which drivers in that position must learn.

Basically if you drive a Hispania or one of the slower cars, you are going to be lapped several times by the leader during a race and by plenty of other cars too. The art is in not losing too much time in the process. Ricciardo will have spent as much time looking in his mirrors for Red Bulls, Ferraris and the rest as he will looking at the track.

I’m told by insiders that by moving off line, getting the tyres dirty and cleaning them up again, which takes a few corners, he was losing around 4 seconds every time a car lapped him, relative to what he would have done on a clear lap.

In comparison his team mate Tonio Liuzzi has now got being lapped down to a fine art and loses only around 0.8sec every time. So Ricciardo was a long way behind Liuzzi at the end. This is something he will be looking to rectify this weekend at the Nurburgring.

It is always interesting when a driver with a lot of promise is obliged to start his career in a backmarker car because it is an unaccustomed position for them to be in, having usually been winners who dominated the junior categories.

Ricciardo was also slightly disappointed after qualifying that he did’t get more out of the Pirelli tyres and this is another area he will be wanting to improve this weekend.

Ricciardo lost seven seconds to Liuzzi in the first ten laps on a damp track on intermediate tyres before the pit stops.

He was half a second slower than the Italian in qualifying and his fastest race lap was four tenths slower.

Moving to HRT from the relative security of the Friday test role at Toro Rosso was a bit of a gamble for Ricciardo and his Red Bull mentor Helmut Marko.

He was a young guy full of potential with fast lap times in the two young guns tests he’s done for Red Bull and no pressure on him on Fridays. He has to show strong progress over the ten races he’s contesting or some of that sheen will come off.

I reminded him that Damon Hill had a similar experience at Silverstone in 1992 in an uncompetitive Brabham, being lapped by Nigel Mansell. But a year later Damon was winning races and four years afterwards he became the world champion.

On a side note, with the team having been taken over by Spanish investors Thesan Capital, there is some suggestion that former GP2 front runner Javier Villa may do some Friday test drives and that in time Liuzzi may be replaced by the Spaniard.

In Canada Tonio Liuzzi qualified a tenth of a second faster than Timo Glock, but in Valencia the gap was a second and in Barcelona it was half a second.

The 22 year old Red Bull sponsored driver has been doing the Toro Rosso Friday testing duties, bit it is clear that Red Bull driver mentor Dr Helmut Marko wanted to accelerate the programme with Ricciardo. It always looked tricky to find a way into the Toro Rosso race set up and when Jaime Alguersuari out in back to back career best results in the last two races, another route was needed.

Marko is close to Buemi, having backed him since childhood while Alguersuari’s father is a man of significant money and influence. I will be very interested to dig into this situation and see whether he had some hand behind the scenes in brokering for the Spanish owned HRT team to take Ricciardo. I suspect not, but you never know.

Ricciardo doesn’t seem to have had much to do with the process, only finding out shortly before the announcement that this was his next career move. He is going to continue with his season of World Series by Renault in parallel, which is a real tester for him.

Certainly to go by what HRT owner Jose Ramon Carabante said, he is hoping there could be more to come in terms of helping Red Bull develop drivers. They already have Toro Rosso for that, of course.

“This agreement is a reward for all the hard work Hispania Racing has shown since we started in Formula One last year,” Carabante said. “We’re proud that the Formula One world champion team has trusted us in their effort of developing their drivers. Let’s hope that this is just the start of a fruitful relationship.”

Hispania is undergoing some change at the moment. The team has been acquired by Thesan Capital, a Spanish investment firm, which has taken on Carabante’s stake. There have been suggestions that Dr Colin Kolles may be moving on from his role as team leader.

Carabante appeared to be one of those F1 team owners who underestimated the cost involved in taking the team on. HRT has the smallest budget of all the F1 teams.

So the question is, is Ricciardo making a terrible mistake in jumping at the first F1 race seat that comes his way?

Will this opportunity be a good thing for the Australian, or will it create a bad impression to see a young driver who’s tipped for the top being lapped three times as the HRTs were in Valencia, setting a fastest lap some six seconds slower than the race winning Red Bull car. Silverstone always shows up a bad car and although he knows it well from his British F3 winning season, he will be looking in his mirrors as much as at the track ahead.

On the upside Ricciardo will get some F1 race experience and will have a good benchmark against Tonio Liuzzi, whom some F1 observers rate pretty highly. At Force India he was not as strong as Adrian Sutil, who is now struggling to beat Paul di Resta.

Not every promising young driver can start in a race winning car, as Lewis Hamilton did, for example in 2007. Fernando Alonso started in a Minardi in 2001, doing a full season in the back of the grid team. He started dead last at Silverstone that year, qualifying over four seconds off the pole time. In the race he was lapped three times. But he always says that year was a great learning year out of the spotlight. I remember many occasions that year being impressed with the speed the Minardi was being driven with and he certainly did enough to earn his move through the ranks with Renault. Flavio Briatore was steering that process, as Marko is with Ricciardo.

In this respect it was similar to Ayrton Senna’s first F1 season with Toleman in 1984.

So it can work out, but it’s crucial to do what both Senna and Alonso did in their apprentice season and stand out in a poor car. We will quickly see what Ricciardo is made of and he will have 10 races (it is thought Karthikeyan will race in India) to make his mark before Marko makes a decision on the next step for him.

Ricciardo: A lot to smile about (Getty)

Second it justifies the existence of Toro Rosso as it is the proving ground of young drivers. Again, Vettel came up via this route. Red Bull can finally say they have proven the concept.

Third it gives Ricciardo a chance, as Vettel had in his early days, to run on Fridays with the regular F1 drivers, get to know the tracks and the scene without too much pressure. Rather than stand around like a spare part he will have something positive to focus his efforts on. Outside of this opportunity he will also be trying to win the Formula Renault 3.5 series next year having narrowly missed out on it last year. The pressure will be on there.

Finally it will put some real pressure on the existing Toro Rosso racing drivers, Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari. Both had difficult moments in 2010. Alguersuari seemed to be steadily improving as the season reached its conclusion, while Buemi by that stage seemed to be going backwards and he’s the one standing on the trapdoor at the moment.

“I am sure that having a hungry youngster on the books will keep our current driver pairing nice and sharp!” said Toro Rosso boss Franz Tost.

Ricciardo’s presence in the team, with direct comparisons in lap time on the F1 circuits, will stimulate competition and should get the best out of the drivers, Neither of them are rookies any more, they’ve learned the ropes and now it’s time to show that thay have the quality to step up to Red Bull Racing, should Mark Webber’s seat become available for 2012.

“My main priority for 2011 is to win the Formula Renault 3.5 championship, but my ultimate aim is to be a full-time Formula 1 driver and this new role has to be the best step towards achieving that ambition,” said Ricciardo.

Toro Rosso seem to like to give drivers two years to prove themselves or be moved on; we’ve seen it with Tonio Liuzzi, Sebastien Bourdais, Scott Speed, all of whom were dispensed with when they didn’t cut the mustard in year two. So 2011 is a big year for Buemi in particular, and to a lesser extent Alguersuari as he started mid season in 2009.

It’s possible that Ricciardo could step up to replace one of them during the season, but Alguersari showed how hard that was in 2009. At least Ricciardo would have had some time in the car before being thrown in the deep end. But there is evidence that throwing drivers in too young can harm them, rather than help them.

That said, Toro Rosso has been one of the teams willing to be ruthless in dropping drivers suddenly in recent years; just ask Speed and Bourdais.

With all the talk of how hard it is for young kids to break into F1, this is a positive story for the sport, albeit underlining that you need to commit to Red Bull, or one of the big corporates, to achieve anything. After years of pouring money into the sport in vain, now everything seems to be all about Red Bull.

We will watch Ricciardo with great interest. The indicators so far look very promising.

Ricciardo at speed (Getty)

So you’d have to work on the basis of taking 1.4s -1.5s off the headline lap times to get a comparable read to times set during Grand Prix weekend. Nevertheless it’s a formidable effort by Ricciardo.

Jerome d’Ambrosio’s best time of 1m 38.802s, is 2.099s faster than Vitaly Petrov managed last week, when he outqualified Robert Kubica. The Belgian up and comer did some running with Virgin on Fridays during the Grand Prix weekend towards the end of the season and must have a reasonable chance of a seat there next season.

Most of the other times set today were either a couple of tenths faster or slower than the respective cars managed at the weekend, but not everyone was going for outright performance. Some drivers were still doing set up and aero evaluation work.

Ricciardo acknowledged that the Red Bull RB6 is a missile of a car, “It’s great to get so close to the big boys’ times from the weekend. It’s very rare to get a perfect car, but I have to say this one is very close. It’s been a great two days and it would be fantastic to get a chance to drive in F1 full time.”

The test also marked the final lap for Bridgestone tyres in F1 after 14 years of competition. The stats are a little meaningless because for the last four years it had no competition from other tyre suppliers. But it’s a long association that comes to an end today.

On Friday the F1 teams will get their first experience of Pirelli tyres and a new adventure begins.

Young Guns Test, Yas Marina Circuit, Day 2
1. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m38.102s 77
2. Jerome D’Ambrosio Renault 1m38.802s 83
3. Sam Bird Mercedes 1m39.220s 82
4. Gary Paffett McLaren 1m39.760s 84
5. Jules Bianchi Ferrari 1m39.916s 93
6. Sergio Perez Sauber 1m40.543s 91
7. Paul di Resta Force India 1m40.901s 27
8. Pastor Maldonado Williams 1m40.944s 81
9. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1m40.974s 61
10. Yelmer Buurman Force India 1m41.178s 67
11. Davide Valsecchi Hispania 1m43.013s 32
12. Luiz Razia Virgin 1m43.525s 70
13. Josef Kral Hispania 1m44.143s 61
14. Rodolfo Gonzalez Lotus 1m44.312s 41
15. Vladimir Arabadzhiev Lotus 1m45.723s 49

Ricciardo: A lot to smile about (Getty)

It has to be observed that the comparison of times with last weekend is slightly misleading as the track has ramped up significantly since qualifying with all the rubber that has gone down. Nevertheless it is impressive speed from the former British F3 champion, who finished runner up in the Formula Renault 3.5 series this year.

Ricciardo was also very fast in last season’s young guns test. You get the sense that Red Bull consider him to be the next big thing. I asked around in the paddock last weekend about his prospects and it seems that there is a plan afoot for him to run a Red Bull backed entry in GP2 next season. But at the same time, this two day test in Abu Dhabi will serve as a reminder to his bosses that he has the potential to move straight to F1 next season.

The Red Bull owned Toro Rosso team has already confirmed that Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari will drive for them next season, but there has been some pressure on Buemi in the second half of the season after being outperformed by Alguersuari. A strong run by Ricciardo this week will heighten that pressure.

Also likely to be staking his claim for a 2011 race seat is Paul di Resta, the Force India reserve driver, who hopes to replace Tonio Liuzzi.

Red Bull also backs Frenchman Jean Eric Vergne, who is running this week for Toro Rosso and who is also considered to be a hot prospect.

Ferrari are running Jules Bianchi, who is managed by Nicolas Todt, Felipe Massa’s manager. Bianchi has the car to himself for these two days, not sharing it with any of the other drivers in Ferrari’s Young Driver programme. Ferrari announced that Bianchi was the “test driver” last week, rather than the reserve driver, which is the role Giancarlo Fisichella has carried out. There seems to be some vagueness about where on stops and the other starts and what Fisichella’s future role might be. Bianchi will be at all the European F1 rounds next year as he continues his quest to win the GP2 series with Todt’s ART outfit. After that he will be looking for a way into an F1 seat.

Pastor Maldonado had a run in the HRT, covering 108 laps, the most of any driver today. This is an interesting link up giving him a lot of extra time in an F1 car ahead of his likely F1 debut next season with Williams. HRT boss Colin Kolles is close to Williams boss Adam Parr, who yesterday let Nico Hulkenberg go, paving the way for Maldonado, who is also due to test for Williams this week, to take the seat. Today he did a 1m43.750s, which compares well with Bruno Senna’s qualifying time on Saturday of 1m 45.085s, even allowing for track improvement.

It’s interesting to look at this next generation having their chance to run in F1 cars. With Sebastian Vettel becoming the youngest ever F1 champion at 23, it shows that the age barrier is coming down all the time. In the last five years that record has been broken three times, first by Fernando Alonso then by Lewis Hamilton. We must be getting close to the limit of how young you can be to win the title, but Vettel is proof that young driver programmes get results. Running this week are some other youngsters who are keen to prove that further.

1. Daniel Ricciardo Red Bull 1m39.616s
2. Oliver Turvey McLaren 1m40.725s
3. Antonio Felix da Costa Force India 1m41.381s
4. Esteban Gutierrez Sauber 1m41.432s
5. Dean Stoneman Williams 1m41.522s
6. Mikhail Aleshin Renault 1m42.073s
7. Jean-Eric Vergne Toro Rosso 1m42.489s
8. Paul di Resta Force India 1m42.736s
9. Sam Bird Mercedes 1m42.985s
10. Jerome D’Ambrosio Virgin 1m43.518s
11. Pastor Maldonado HRT 1m43.750s
12. Jules Bianchi Ferrari 1m43.894s
13. Rodolfo Gonzalez Lotus 1m44.924s
14. Rio Haryanto Virgin 1m49.439s

At the wheel of the Red Bull, the 20 year old Australian, who won the British F3 championship, clocked a time of 1m 17.418s, the fastest time of the week. It was set on low fuel and new tyres, but it is still a quick time to add to the impressive runs he had put in during high fuel running. Engineers from other teams had their eye on him from day one.

Ricciardo is from Perth, but his father is Sicilian and his mother Calabrian. He speaks some Italian and clearly felt at home in the F1 environment, telling Italian media colleages that driving an F1 car was not as hard as he thought it would be. Mind you, he was driving the car that won the last three Grands Prix of the season. Next season he will race in World Series.

While Jules Bianchi captured most of the attention this week for living out every boy’s dream and getting a first run in an F1 car at the wheel of a Ferrari and then announcing that he had signed a contract. Ricciardo and Paul di Resta are the two drivers who emerge from the week with their reputations most enhanced. Di Resta was second fastest today having thoroughly impressed the Force India team. He is hoping for a third driver role there, but may find some new F1 teams knocking on his door after this week’s performance.

Also in action today was Lucas di Grassi, who is a candidate for a drive with the Virgin Racing team.

The test was pronounced a success by the teams, who have been able to do some valuable work on testing the cars at their 2010 weight, which is 620 kilos (due to no refuelling next year). Many teams got some useful data to help with the development of their 2010 cars.

The next question is how many of these drivers will appear on the 2010 entry list when all the gaps are filled in by the new teams? It seems that there is some promising talent out there, although most of it still needs a bit of maturing.

JEREZ TEST DAY 3
1. Ricciardo Red Bull 1m17.418s 77
2. Di Resta Force India 1m18.736s 53
3. Paffett McLaren 1m18.746s 59
4. Conway Brawn 1m19.096s 77
5. Hulkenberg Williams 1m19.226s 106
6. Baguette Sauber 1m19.356s 70
7. Turvey McLaren 1m19.358s 32
8. Ericsson Brawn 1m19.382s 49
9. Di Grassi Renault 1m19.602s 123
10. Hildebrand Force India 1m19.873s 41
11. Sanchez Ferrari 1m21.147s 39
12. Zampieri Ferrari 1m21.279s 42
12. Zipoli Ferrari 1m21.725s 41
13. Hartley Toro Rosso 1m22.493s 50
15. Bortolotti Toro Rosso 1m23.271s 34
16. Tung Renault 1m32.477s 4