South Australian teenager Todd Hazelwood will compete in this year’s Dunlop Series with Matt Stone Racing.
The former Australian Formula 3 Championship runner steps into the car raced last year by George Miedecke.
Hazelwood won the Shannons Supercar Showdown reality television program in 2013, earning a drive at the Sydney Olympic Park Dunlop Series finale.
A crash in qualifying, however, put the rookie’s Minda Motorsport-run Holden out of the weekend.
Linking with MSR will see Hazelwood drive alongside front-runner Ash Walsh and gentleman racer Michael Hector in the three-car squad.
““I’m very proud and excited to be part of this year’s championship, it was a huge challenge by everyone involved to make this happen and I can’t wait to kick the year off at my home event, the Clipsal 500,” said Hazelwood.
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“The year will be a steep learning curve for me and I will be going into the championship with a realistic mindset … but like anyone else in the field, I want to perform at my best and I believe I have one of the best packages to do that.”
Hazelwood tested David Reynolds’ 2013 V8 Supercar at Winton last year as part of the television show prize, while he had his first taste of the ex-Stone Brothers Racing MSR Falcon at Queensland Raceway last week.
Team owner Matt Stone said he is pleased to be giving a young driver an opportunity.
“It’s good to run a rookie again in a V8 and we were impressed with Todd’s ability to quickly adapt to driving a V8 and had a very productive day testing,” Stone said.
“We have faith that Todd has the skill to drive the car competitively at Clipsal and we will be working on his race-craft and comfort ability with all the other cars around him.
“It can be very daunting racing a V8 around a street circuit but we have every faith that Todd will continue to impress.”
The Dunlop Series will kick-off at Adelaide’s Clipsal 500 at the end of the month.
