Evans joins Brad Jones Racing this season in the SCT-backed entry formerly raced by Jack Smith.

The deal marks a significant career turning point for the Kiwi, who returns down under after a stint racing Porsches in Europe.

He will at least have familiar surroundings for his full-time Supercars debut at Mount Panorama this weekend, having raced at the Bathurst 12 Hour last weekend.

He also has two Bathurst 1000 starts to his name with BJR/SCT.

Heading into the Thrifty Bathurst 500, Evans is acutely aware of the challenge ahead of him – and has set some lofty goals for his rookie season.

“Making my debut in the Supercars Championship as a solo driver is really exciting,” said Evans.

“It’s going to be a pretty full-on weekend. It’s the first round on my own, so I’ll have a lot of things to take in and I just want to keep on learning.

“I want to make sure that we hit the ground running, but at the same time turn as many laps as I can.

“My time at Brad Jones Racing has started really well. Knowing the team for the last two years and all the guys remaining on car #12 are the same including engineer Julian Stannard, so that continuity is really nice. It makes you feel a little more at home.

“After spending the test day and a little bit of time in Albury with the team. Everything seems to be gelling really well and I’m just excited to see where we stack up on the track.

“I would like to think my knowledge from Europe can help BJR. There are aspects of what I’ve done overseas, the endurance racing and little things that can be useful to myself as well as the team. I’ll think of it as a collaboration, which can be beneficial to both parties.

“Everyone knows the level of competition in Supercars is very tight, so if I can be consistently running in the top 50 per cent of the field and knocking on the door of some top five finishes it would be a really, really strong year.”