Young driver test: Davide Valsecchi and Edoardo Mortara join Lotus line-up

Valsecchi, this year's GP2 champion, will test on November 8, taking over from Mortara, who will drive the day before.

Nicolas Prost, who had already been confirmed for the test, will be in action on the opening day.

"For me this is a great honour, as I am eager to showcase my talents and demonstrate that I am ready to take the next step in my career after winning the GP2 Series," said Valsecchi, who has previously tested for Lotus - now Caterham - and HRT back in 2011 and 2010 respectively.

"Lotus is a great team with a superb group of engineers, so it's great to be getting out on track with them in Abu Dhabi."

DTM racer Mortara, the only driver to have won the Macau F3 Grand Prix twice, will be making his Formula 1 debut with the team.

"This is a fantastic opportunity for me to join Lotus and especially to be driving the E20 on track in Abu Dhabi," he said. "I can't wait to be in action and working with a team which is performing so well this season and has such good prospects for the future.

"Contributing to the team's programme is likely to be highly rewarding; I'm eager to learn from the experience and highlight my potential."

Team boss Eric Boullier added: "I think we have a great line-up of drivers to work with the team in Abu Dhabi and it will be very interesting for us to see how they stack-up; especially as we will have all the data from the Grand Prix which takes place the week before.

"Nicolas we know well from his existing work with the team, while Edoardo and Davide are new to us so it should be a productive three days; not just for the drivers, but also the team as we evaluate new parts on the car for our final push at the last two races of the season."