John Kenny's Motorsport Blog

The career of an Irish motorsport great could be coming to an end as Eugene Donnelly, the five-time Irish Tarmac Rally Champion, says he is likely to take a year out from the sport and could possibly be on the point of retirement after his decision not to contest the Galway International, the opening round of the 2010 championship writes RTÉ Sport's John Kenny.

The opening event was won by the Ford Focus World Rally car of Gareth MacHale who is now likely to try and emulate his father Austin, another five-time championship winner.

However, it's now very unlikely that MacHale will be in competition with Donnelly who won't be one of his main rivals for championship honours this season.

Donnelly said: 'I made initial plans to contest Galway and I still have the Skoda Fabia in a lock up in Draperstown.

'In fact we sent the engine and electronics to Weavers, the factory that looks after the car in preparation for the opening round, but to be honest, I didn't really make much of getting sponsorship and we decided not to take part.

'It's likely that I will take a year out. I may be tempted to run in Donegal or maybe in an event in France, but my business needs attention and I really need to concentrate on that.'

Donnelly has been a huge supporter of the Irish Tarmac series and is well liked, more often than not staying on after event award ceremonies when others have left and gone home.

The Maghera native won his first rally, the Cavan Stages, back in 1984, but it wasn't until eight years later that he took his first senior victory, the 2002 Galway International, driving a Subaru Impreza, the first of his four wins in the West.

The first of his five tarmac championships came back in 2004 while driving a Toyota Corolla. He won the series again in 2005, 2006 and in 2007 when he switched back to a Subaru Impreza.

His final championship win came last year when his ageing Fabia was dusted down and sent out on the Irish road as he held of the challenge of Gareth MacHale's Ford Focus.

While he has tasted success, Donnelly's career has not been without its controversy. The Derryman was leading the final round in Cork in 2004 and was on his way to the title when his Corolla came across rocks and timber on his racing line at the exit from a high speed corner.

Derek McGarrity's Subaru was the first car through the stage, but did not come across the blockage, but there was a three minute delay before Donnelly's car was started, and during that time, the obstruction was put in place.

The Munster Car Club, Motorsport Ireland and the Gardaí each began investigations into the incident, but nothing came of it and McGarrity and Donnelly agreed that they should jointly share the title. It's never been fully proven as to exactly why Donnelly was targeted.

Nevertheless, Donnelly put an incident that could have killed him behind him, and has become somewhat of a legend in Irish rallying circles with his five championship wins.

It now seems that he won't be making a bid for win number six.

Donnelly said: 'I'm now working on a development plan for the Chambers Coach hire business.

'There is a lot travel involved and that is the main reason why I probably won't be in action this season.

'There is also the fact that I'm 43 years of age and there are the youngsters coming up strong behind in Keith Cronin and Craig Breen.'

Cronin, the British Rally champion, led the more fancied World Rally Cars in his Group N Mitsubishi after the opening stage in Galway before crashing out. Breen was an impressive runner up in the Ford Fiesta S2000.

Donnelly is impressed by the two youngsters and the speed they have shown over the past year.

He said: 'It's good to see the young lads coming through. That Fiesta that Breen was driving is a long way off the world rally cars in terms of development, so to bring it home in second place in Galway was a great result and a testament to the ability of the driver himself.

'Keith is also an undoubted talent but I feel that sometimes he is at 110% and pushes too hard. He needs to pull it (his driving) back to 99 % and have some extra consistency.

'If you drive too hard you won't get away with it on tarmac.'

Cronin and Breen will go head to head in the battle for the 2010 British Rally Championship the season.

Donnelly added: 'It should be a close battle and it will be interesting to see how the Group N car of Cronin goes up against Breen's S2000 Fiesta.'

In other news, 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.

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 fifth fastest time on day one of the two day test while the Canadian was eighth fastest of the 30 drivers.

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

Tim Scott of Status Grand Prix said: '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.

'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.

Scott added: '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.'

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.