MERCURIAL Perth youngster Daniel Ricciardo has won a spot in the upcoming British Grand Prix, joining fellow Aussie Mark Webber on the grid.

Ricciardo won the spot with the tailender Hispania team after extremely impressive lead-up work as the Friday test driver with Toro Rosso.

The call-up was an early birthday present for the Perth-born racer, who turns 22 today.

The former Duncraig go-karter, who started driving at 9, is racing in Hungary this weekend and will make his debut at Silverstone next Sunday.

Ricciardo is replacing Indian driver Narain Karthikeyan, who has been outpaced all season by his Italian team leader Tonio Liuzzi, although the details of the deal were not revealed.

What is clear is that Ricciardo has a very bright future in Formula One.

He has been groomed through the same Red Bull junior program that identified Sebastian Vettel and carried him through time at Toro Rosso into the front-line Red Bull team alongside Webber.

His hard-nosed Austrian mentor, Helmut Marko, originally placed Ricciardo in the Formula Renault 3.5 series for this season but that program has taken second place to his work during testing with Toro Rosso.

He has often outpaced the Italian-based team's regular racers, Sebastian Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari, and run in the top half of the grand prix field during the first practice session on Fridays at F1 races.

Ricciardo was widely tipped to take a race place from one of the Toro Rosso regulars before the end of the 2011 season but his call-up has come early and he has been loaned by Red Bull to Hispania.

He goes to the British GP next weekend with plenty of experience on the Silverstone circuit from during his time in the British Formula Three championship, which he won.

However, the layout is new and so is a massive pit complex constructed to bring the UK event up to the standard of newer races in the world championship, including the Australian Grand Prix at Albert Park.