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Red Bull junior Antonio Felix da Costa will drive a DTM car for BMW this weekend as part of a rookie test.

The Portuguese Formula Renault 3.5 race winner was overlooked for a graduation to Toro Rosso's Formula 1 line-up in favour of GP3 champion Daniil Kvyat for 2014, but Red Bull stated it would continue to support his career.

AUTOSPORT understands that a return to FR3.5 is not Red Bull's first choice for da Costa, and as it wants him to be available for F1 simulator work - likely to take place on grand prix weekends - a switch to GP2 is also unlikely.

Red Bull is also keen for da Costa to gain experience of what it considers to be a "professional" series, meaning DTM could fit the bill.

BMW motorsport director Jens Marquardt said that the manufacturer will begin running its new M4 model "in the coming week", and he revealed that da Costa and Jens Klingmann will "contest" a rookie test on Sunday.

Klingmann - the 2007 German Formula BMW champion - has been a regular in GT racing in Germany since 2010.