Richard Lyons (right) will drive for A1 Team Ireland in this weekend's A1GP event in Sentul, Indonesia, the 27 year old making his debut in the series. He will be supported by Test and Reserve Driver John O'Hara and the team's principal driver so far this season, Michael Devaney, who both will be on hand as the team concentrates on developing the set-up and performance of Ireland's A1GP car.

Lyons, from Hillsborough but now living in Tokyo, has been a race and championship winner in cars similar to the Lola-designed A1GP machine, having previously won the 2004 Formula Nippon series in Japan. He is currently racing for Nissan in the Japanese Super GT series, for whom he also won the Championship in 2004 and made his debut this year in Australian V8 Supercars.

Commenting on Lyons joining A1 Team Ireland, team owner Mark Kershaw said: "Richard's agreement to join us for next weekend's race in Indonesia is important as it will give the team a real opportunity to improve its competitiveness. Under this year's new rules we have been forced to split practice sessions between drivers while some of our rivals including the series-leading German team have run one driver in all sessions."

"By putting Richard in the car this weekend he can compete in all the sessions, and he brings with him enormous experience. Since we can only enter one car in A1GP it's been a tough decision to take given the enormous effort that John and Michael have put in this season, but their reaction has been fantastic - entirely supportive and professional. The whole team understands this is about giving Ireland's A1GP team the best chance to progress."

This will not be Lyons' first visit to an A1GP event with the Irish squad. He advised both the existing drivers and engineer during last week's A1GP event in Malaysia, a track on which he has excelled in recent years.

"I am really looking forward to making my A1GP debut for Ireland," said Lyons. "I have followed the series very closely since it started in 2005 and was happy to help the team out in Malaysia. The opportunity to race in Sentul was unexpected, but the strategy of being able to run an experienced driver in all the sessions should help us make progress against the opposition and I'm going to be giving it one hundred percent effort to help the team compete to win."