Cork Racing driver Micheal Fitzgerald will test for Australian Formula Ford racing team Icon Motorsport this new year.

Fitzgerald is trying to secure a seat in the 2008 Australian Formula Ford championship which begins on the streets of Melbourne supporting the ING Formula 1 Grand Prix in March.

He has raced for the Cork Racing team in the Irish Formula Ford Championship for the past few years and in the BRDC Formula Ford Championship in the UK.

Formula Ford is one of the most competitive racing categories in motorsport and it is the foundation ground for future international F1 drivers against the best national single seater pilots.

Micheal said: "The biggest challenge will be racing in the heat and maintaining concentration through the dehydration. It will be a world of difference to pre-season testing at a wet and cold Mondello Park track in County Kildare in Ireland in March. It's been a long held ambition of mine to race in Australia and ambition isn't a dirty word to the working class"