Flashback: Birthday Boy Davide Valsecchi's F1 testing debut

Valsecchi was Italy's great hope for Formula 1 not long ago, GP2 Asia champion in 2009-2010 and 2012 GP2 Series Champion was upwardly mobile when he was called to test for HRT at the Abu Dhabi Young Driver Test on 17 November 2010.

The Italian driver, 23 at the time, impressed in his first outing at Yas Marina Circuit. He ended the day 11th fastest of the 15 drivers on duty.

HRT were always a back of the grid team and the fact that he beat drivers a Manor driver and a couple of Lotus boys while trouncing the other driver on testing for HRT that day.

Valsecchi did 32 laps during his half day in the car, setting a best time of 1:43.013 which was over a second faster than the other HRT driver Josef Král.

His time was two seconds faster than regular driver Bruno Senna's qualifying time for the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix set on the previous Saturday, albeit in different conditions.

Nevertheless, he ended up 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).

At the time, Valsecchi said of the experience, "Maybe it was possible to do something better, but I was quite competitive. Considering how many laps I did [32] it was a good enough performance and the team was happy that I did a good job. I had just two-and-a-half hours, but it came easily.

"We beat Lotus and Virgin and I was certainly confident to be fast here because I won in GP2 on Sunday. I immediately had the confidence to be fast and after my first run I already beat the time that my team-mate set."

"The car is a Dallara, so the chassis is the most similar to GP2. This helped me a lot, even with the position in the car. It meant that everything was familiar," explained Valsecchi.

After the test, HRT team boss Colin Kolles told La Gazzetta dello Sport, "Italy should support him because he did an awesome job. It took him a just a few laps to understand the car, while some of his colleagues do not achieve that even after a full season."

Alas for Valsecchi no one was listening to Kolles.

The 2012 GP2 Champion became Lotus test driver the following year and looked set to make his debut for the team when Kimi Raikkonen pulled out of the final two races of the season due to a money issue with the team and the Italian was expected to get his break.

Instead, the team opted for Heikki Kovalainen which irked Valsecchi considerably and he let it be known. Thereafter his career as a driver fizzled out, but he still remains on the scene in various pundit and commentary roles, which he tackles with boundless zeal.

Happy Birthday Davide!