Shane Kelly will settle into his armchair on Sunday, switch on his television and savour the start of another Formula One season in Brazil.

For most of his young life he has dreamed of one day joining the world's greatest drivers in the blue riband event of motorsport.

This summer his dreams could take one big leap towards reality as Kelly debuts in the British Formula 3 Championship, just a rung or two down the motor racing ladder from Formula One.

It represents a meteoric rise for the 22 year-old engine builder from Eastleigh.

It's just his third year in single-seater racing yet has already made a huge impression on Fred Goddard, the man whose cars he will drive in 2001.

Goddard has a superb record in motor racing. He builds F1 cars, and successful cars they are, too, for a high-profile American racing series which is contested by some of the quickest F1 machines from the more recent world championship campaigns.

Closer to home Goddard specialises in the Formula Three Championship and has several title wins under his belt, the latest coming only last autumn when Bristol's Gary Paffitt won the F3 Scholasrship and the £125,000 prize that goes with it.

As Paffitt moves up, Kelly takes his seat in the Fred Goddard Racing team, behind the wheel of the Renault-engined car which Brazilian Enrique Bernoldi powered to the F3 crown three years ago. Bernoldi, incidently, has just moved up into F1 with Arrows.

His old F3 car's still in great trim. For Kelly it represents the supreme challenge in car management. During his short career he has been behind the wheel of kit racers capable of speeds up to around 120mph. This one does 170mph!

But apparently Kelly's taken to it like a duck to water. His times in testing are quicker than Jensen Button's when he was in F3 a couple of years ago. And Button is now one of the rising young stars of F1.

The Formula 3 Scholarship is relative to the B Class in this championship. The main cars are new, state-of-the-art racers which demand such a high budget that even Paffitt is struggling to put together a package despite being £125,000 richer for his efforts last season.

Nevertheless the Green Flag-sponsored British F3 Championship for 2001 boasts a big grid with 34 cars expected to be there in an even split between the A and B classes.

The fact that Kelly was considerably quicker than some of his Scholarship rivals in a recent test at Nagara in France augers well for his title prospects.

He cut his racing teeth driving karts for seven years before entering racing school at Silverstone and winning the rookie Goldline Bearings Championship in 1999. The following year he switched to Van Diemen chassis and took fourth place in the BARDC Formula Ford Championship.

He works at his local kart track in Eastleigh where he builds racing engines.