Abu Dhabi Young Driver Test: Valsecchi tops final day for Lotus

The Italian, who won the GP2 title with DAMS this year, posted a time of 1m42.677s that was just 0.002 seconds quicker than Antonio Felix da Costa's best overall time on Wednesday for Red Bull.

McLaren's Kevin Magnussen was second fastest at the Yas Marina Circuit, 0.150s behind Valsecchi. Magnussen was back in the car after topping the timesheets on the opening day.

McLaren sporting director Sam Michael praised Magnussen's performance after the test, which was the young Dane's maiden Formula 1 outing.

"His pace, consistency and engineering feedback were all excellent," said Michael. "Given his performance, he certainly didn't look like a guy who had never turned a wheel in a modern F1 car before the start of this week."

Magnussen drove the car in the afternoon, while Oliver Turvey was in charge of testing duties in the morning. The Briton was fifth quickest.

Sauber's Esteban Gutierrez finished in third position after completing 80 laps. A place behind him was Red Bull's Robin Frijns, who returned to action following his outing with Sauber on Tuesday.

Luiz Razia returned to the wheel of the Toro Rosso he drove on the opening day to post the sixth quickest time of Thursday's session. The Brazilian, however, was running a fever and struggled during the day, although he still managed to complete his programme.

American Alexander Rossi was slowest for Caterham after having to finish his day early due to oil on the garage floor when he returned to the pits after his 14th run.

"That meant I didn't have the chance to do any performance runs and I'm sure if I did, my laptimes would have been close to the race drivers, but issues like that are just one of those things," said Rossi.

"They'll take a proper look at what caused the problem and I'm sure it won't affect the team's preparations for Austin or Brazil."

Pos  Driver               Team                Time               Laps
 1.  Davide Valsecchi     Lotus-Renault       1m42.677s           86
 2.  Kevin Magnussen      McLaren-Mercedes    1m42.827s  + 0.150  51
 3.  Esteban Gutierrez    Sauber-Ferrari      1m43.093s  + 0.416  80
 4.  Robin Frijns         Red Bull-Renault    1m43.233s  + 0.556  53
 5.  Oliver Turvey        McLaren-Mercedes    1m43.604s  + 0.927  44
 6.  Luiz Razia           Toro Rosso-Ferrari  1m45.286s  + 2.609  68
 7.  Alexander Rossi      Caterham-Renault    1m46.485s  + 3.808  86