Aussie 20-year-old set for F1 trial with Toyota.

A 20-year-old racing driver from Sydney, Ryan Briscoe, is set to become the third Australian to test a Formula One car this year.

Toyota, which will enter F1 at the Foster's Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne at the start of next season, has announced in Japan today that it will give Briscoe an F1 test in Europe in early November.

The announcement was made by the head of Toyota's F1 project, Swede Ove Andersson, as Finnish driver Mika Salo and Scotsman Allan McNish - who will be Toyota's race drivers in Melbourne on the first weekend of March - tested at Suzuka, home of the Japanese GP.

Briscoe, from Drummoyne in Sydney, was in Italy preparing to fly to Portugal and was unaware Toyota had made the announcement about his test, which will be at the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

He has won the Italian Formula Renault Championship this year in his first season of car racing after an outstanding career in karting. The other Australians to have driven for F1 teams in testing this year are Mark Webber, 25, from Queanbeyan near Canberra, and James Courtney, 21, from Emu Plains in Sydney.

Webber has been the Renault-owned Benetton team's regular test driver while Courtney tested an F1 Jaguar at Monza in Italy in July.