Nov.18 (GMM) Davide Valsecchi is a candidate to race with the HRT team in 2011 if he can find enough funding.

Alongside Pastor Maldonado and Josef Kral, the 23-year-old Italian was comfortably the quickest of the young runners with the Spanish outfit in Abu Dhabi this week.

In fact, he was the fastest driver at the wheel of any of the cars fielded by F1's new teams, including Jerome d'Ambrosio, Rio Haryanto and Luiz Razia (Virgin) and Rodolfo Gonzalez and Vladimir Arabadzhiev (Lotus).

"Italy should support him," team boss Colin Kolles is quoted by La Gazzetta dello Sport.

"He definitely did an awesome job. It took him a few laps to understand the car, while some of his colleagues did not succeed even after a full season," he quipped.

Auto Motor und Sport reports that Venezuelan Maldonado's tests with HRT and Williams in Abu Dhabi cost his sponsors an incredible EUR 1 million, while Czech Kral reportedly paid HRT 300,000 euros for his single test day.

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