As Red Bull welcomes home its world championship winning team, Daniel Ricciardo tops the timesheets in Abu Dhabi in the team's RB6 as the Young Driver test gets underway.

The Australian completed 83 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:39.616, over second clear of his nearest rival.

Second quickest was Oliver Turvey in the McLaren, the English youngster completing 85 laps. The day's programme started with a number of acclimatisation runs, along with aero and tyre data-gathering for the rest of the week. The team then ran different fuel loads for the new fuel system in 2011. After the lunch break the Woking team continued with set-up work.

For Force India, Paul di Resta took to the circuit for the opening 90 minutes to test development items ahead of the tyre test later this week before handing the VJM03 over to Antonio Felix da Costa for the remainder of the day.

Da Costa became the youngest-ever Portuguese driver to run an F1 car when he took to the track running a variety of settings, fuel loads and aero configurations.

Di Resta will again be running in the first part of the day tomorrow, with Dutchman Yelmer Buurman taking over driving duties mid morning.

"It was good to be back in the car this morning for the first time since the Italian Grand Prix," said di Resta, "even though it was a very short session - just over an hour and a half. We had a few development items we needed to run to carry over to the tyre test later this week and I had to learn the circuit layout since I'd never driven the Yas Marina track other than on the simulator. It's very technical with tight corners that you need to get right, and I'm looking forward to getting out again tomorrow to carry on the programme in the morning."

"It was a good day, quite surprising, even for me," added da Costa. "I adapted to the car a bit faster than I expected and that was very positive as I could do some real work to get up to speed more quickly and get to grips with the set up of the car. I think my lap time was good, only four tenths from the qualifying times of the Force India this weekend, so I am pretty pleased. It was just such an amazing experience today and I wish everyone could try it as it's so impressive, such fun. I have to thank the whole crew at Force India who worked so hard today, to my management and sponsors and I hope to have some more F1 experience again quite soon."

"A good first day of testing for the team," said Dominic Harlow, the Silverstone outfit's chief race engineer. "We started with Paul to make a short baseline and carry out some component testing and data collection. Antonio took over the car shortly before lunch, familiarised himself quickly and ran through several tyre and long run evaluations as part of what is now our standard Young Driver Programme. Overall we covered our objectives, everyone in the team did a great job, and we and look forward to tomorrow's second Young Driver day."

Esteban Gutierrez, Sauber's reserve driver next year, completed 88 laps in the C29. The 19-year-old Mexican, who finished fourth quickest today, had his very first F1 experience behind the wheel of the BMW Sauber F1.09 almost a year ago when he drove for one day in Jerez.

"I enjoyed the day a lot and it is a shame it is over!" said the Mexican. "It was a very intense way to work because we tried many different things. The changes were quite drastic and this helped me to feel the difference. Of course I had to adapt to the car after I hadn't driven an F1 car for almost a year, but this was no problem. My mental approach to driving is always to be consistent in my progress. I hope this worked out and I was able to do something for the team today."

"Esteban did a solid and tidy job today," added technical director, James Key. "We had a steady and useful morning with Esteban learning the track and getting familiar with the car. He took it quite pragmatically by doing a step at a time, and going a little bit quicker each time he went out. After he got used to everything in the morning, he was ready for a more intense programme in the afternoon. We ran several test items, which meant a busy afternoon programme, and received some very useful feedback and positive directions. We constantly went for runs of five timed laps and we kept the same fuel level all day. We also decided against using the F-Duct for this Young Driver test so top speeds are a little bit down."

Tomorrow, Sergio Perez, also from Mexico, will be in the car, the 20-year old from Guadalajara was recently announced as the team's second race driver for 2011.

Dean Stoneman was onduty for Williams, completing 70 laps on his way to posting a best time of 1:41.522.