Ricciardo dominates rookie testing

Driving Mark Webber's Hungarian Grand Prix-winning Red Bull RB6, the Australian was fastest in the morning session before Mercedes driver Sam Bird knocked him off top spot in the afternoon by five thousandths of a second.

Ricciardo reclaimed the top spot shortly after the one hour to go mark before setting his best lap with two minutes to go after a mechanical problem for Yelmer Buurman brought out the red flags with 20 minutes remaining.

Although track conditions are estimated to have improved by up to 1.5 seconds, the Australian's lap was impressive on only his fourth day of testing in F1.

Renault's Jerome D'Ambrosio recovered from a spin earlier in the day, which led to the session briefly being stopped, to set the second-fastest time in the closing stages of the day. After driving for Virgin yesterday afternoon, the Belgian was seven tenths of a second off Ricciardo's pace and four hundredths faster than Mercedes driver Sam Bird.

Gary Paffett was fourth-fastest for McLaren, returning to action for the team for the first time since February in place of junior driver Oliver Turvey. Paffett finished just ahead of Ferrari tester Jules Bianchi, who set some good times today after focusing on development work yesterday.

Sergio Perez was sixth fastest for Sauber on his F1 test debut, pipping Force India driver Paul di Resta, who set his time early in the morning before handing over to Buurman, with his last flying lap.

Pastor Maldonado made his debut for Williams, switching from HRT. He spent the morning doing aerodynamic work but went faster in the afternoon, lapping three quarters of a second off Rubens Barrichello's qualifying time from last Saturday - although his afternoon was interrupted when a sensor warning forced a precautionary shutdown of the engine.

Jean-Eric Vergne completed his second day of running for Scuderia Toro Rosso. He was ninth fastest but missed the second half of the afternoon session as he had to leave early to travel to Macau for this weekend's Formula 3 grand prix. The British F3 champion also lost time in the afternoon when he stopped on track as a result of an engine warning, forcing a precautionary shutdown because of the age of the powerplant. He finished ahead of Buurman.

Davide Valsecchi made his debut in the HRT F110 in the afternoon session, fresh from winning the final GP2 race of the season on the track three days ago. The Italian caused a red flag when he spun while on course to improve his lap-time, but set his best time - two seconds faster than Bruno Senna's qualifying time from Saturday - at the end of the day.

Also making their F1 debuts were GP2 racer Luiz Razia and Josef Kral for Virgin and HRT, along with Bulgarian Vladimir Arabadzhiev for Lotus.

Pos  Driver                Car          Time       Laps
 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

All timing unofficial