Ricciardo unsure of 2011 plans

The Red Bull reserve was on top by a comfortable margin throughout the two days of testing, and ended up beating Sebastian Vettel's grand prix pole time by over a second - although track conditions had improved since the race weekend.

Ricciardo has so far made swift progress through the junior categories, taking the British Formula 3 title at the first attempt in 2009 after winning the previous year's Formula Renault WEC crown, and then only narrowly missing out on the Formula Renault 3.5 crown in his rookie season this year, when the more experienced Mikhail Aleshin pipped him by two points.

At present Red Bull has no openings in its F1 line-ups, with Vettel and Mark Webber committed to Red Bull Racing and Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari secure at Toro Rosso - although AUTOSPORT understands that the STR duo only have firm deals for the first half of the season.

When asked by AUTOSPORT if he knew what his next step would be, Ricciardo said he had spoken to Red Bull motorsport advisor Dr Helmut Marko as soon as the test finished, but that there was no news yet.

"I actually spoke to him after the last run, just to inform him of how it all went," said Ricciardo.

"And I asked him if he's got any news for me. But he genuinely said nothing has come up yet, there's nothing even close to being confirmed.

"In a way it would be nice to know something now, but it's not really under my control. The fact that he was being honest with me and telling me just for now to go back home and relax for a bit is not too bad.

"I can't really stress about something that could or won't be happening, so I'll just sit tight for now."

He said he was not getting too excited about his pace compared to the times set by the race drivers during the grand prix weekend.

"If I was 1.2s faster they'd do a contract tomorrow..." Ricciardo joked. "The circuit obviously has improved, how much? It's hard to say.

"Even from Tuesday it's already improved, it was a fair chunk faster [on Wednesday] for me and for everyone.

"It was good fun to compare with Sebastian on the data and to see I was faster in all the places was quite cool - even though I know it's not a fair comparison."