John Kenny's Irish Motorsport column

Status Grand Prix, the Irish motor racing outfit, who will contest the new GP3 series which will support F1 in selected races this season, have announced that Russian teenager Ivan Lukashevich has signed up to contest the new championship, writes RTÉ Sport's John Kenny.

The 18-year-old Lukashevich is a long-standing member of Marussia Motors' driver development programme, which is dedicated to elevating Russian drivers to Formula One.

Lukashevich is the first driver to be announced as part of the three-car team at Status Grand Prix, which has switched to the new series after winning last year's A1GP World Cup of Motorsport with its A1 Team Ireland entry.

Lukashevich made his on-track debut with the team at the first official two-day GP3 Series test at the Paul Ricard track at Le Castellet in France alongside Lebanon's Daniel Morad and Canadian Robert Wickens.

Both Morad and Wickens raced for their respective countries in the now defunct A1 series and are well known to the Status Grand Prix team, but as yet they haven't been added to their driver line up.

Wickens was the fastest of the three Status drivers posting the 5th fastest time on day one of the two day test while the Canadian was eighth fastest of the 30th drivers.

Morad and 18 year-old Lukashevich struggled however with the Russian the slowest of all the drivers on day two.

'It was a good positive start for the series as all the ten teams turned up and all of them ran their three cars which is quite amazing for a brand new series,' said Tim Scott of Status Grand Prix.

'As with any new championship, there were one or two technical details to be sorted out with the Renault engines but the response of the suppliers was excellent at Paul Richard.

'It was only the first test and we still have work to do, but we were pleased enough. We will now study the data and get the cars and drivers prepared for the next test back in France on 31 March and 1 April.

Status Grand Prix say that both Morad and Wickens are in line to become their other two drivers, and they have spoken to a couple of potential Irish ones as well including Gary Thompson, who raced in BMW Pacific last season and Peter Dempsey, second in the Star Mazda class in the US last year.

'Funding is the major problem with the Irish drivers and being an Irish team we would love to have one in our car.

'That may come next season, but for the moment, we are unlikely to have any Irish drivers involved in 2010,' added Scott.

The GP3 series will race in Dallara chassis powered by a 280BHP Renault engine with Pirelli tyres and will run at seven of the European rounds of the Formula One series starting with two races in Barcelona on the 6/7 May.

The Dunlop National Rally Championship heads to the west of Ireland for the Claremorris based McWilliam Park Hotel Mayo Rally on Sunday, the second round of the 10 round championship.

135 cars and crews will take part, just shy of the maximum allowed and there is real quality at the head of affairs.

Welshman, Mel Evans, who won the opening round of the ten round campaign in Nenagh will continue hid bid to become the first non Irish winner of the championship when he competes in his Subaru Impreza.

The event though will be headed by former National champion, Aaron MacHale who use his championship winning Ford Focus WRC on the nine-stage event

A winner in Mayo in 2008, Aaron is seeded at number one and outside Evans, the Dubliner will face tough opposition from the Impreza trio of Niall Maguire, Kevin Barrett and Derek McGarrity

Outside the top five world rally cars, Craig Breen, who had a brilliant second place in the recent Galway rally, will continue to build up to his assault on the British Rally Championship (BRC) when he competes in his Ford Fiesta S2000.

'I am planning to compete in the Circuit of Kerry and if we do all right, both in Mayo and Kerry, I will try and get the budget to do the rest of the championship,' said Evans

The costs have gone up since 2009 and as I have to travel from Wales to all the events, it is an extra burden."

'It will be tough in Mayo, I have never competed there before so it will depend on the type of stages.'

Niall Maguire, a three time National champion, has finished runner-up in Mayo for the last two seasons. In 2008, he finished seven seconds behind Aaron MacHale while last year, he lost out to Patrick Elliott by six seconds.

Elliott, the current champion, has decided to pull out of the 2010 series due to work commitments.

The Mayo Stages Rally Headquarters is the McWilliam Park Hotel in Claremorris with the first car away at 9am.

The cars and crews then face nine stages at Woodstock, Logboy and the Five Crosswords before the finish back in Claremorris at 5pm.

UTV Drive, a leading online car sale website, is to sponsor the Circuit of Ireland Rally.

The Easter classic will also see the 2010 Dakar Rally winning VW Race Touareg driven as one of the 00 course cars over the 15-stage event that has achieved Intercontinental Rally Challenge (IRC) Supporter Event Status.