American teenager Austin Cindric will undertake a rookie evaluation test with DJR Team Penske today at Queensland Raceway.
The son of Team Penske president Tim Cindric, 17-year-old Austin is set to put Fabian Coulthard’s #12 Taubmans Falcon through its paces during an all-day test.
Rookie evaluations are permitted in addition to each team’s three days of regular testing each season in order to assess young talent.
Although DJRTP has elected to save its remaining two test days for later in the year, Scott Pye will also be on track conducting a shakedown with his new chassis.
Cindric sampled a Matt Stone Racing Dunlop Series Falcon FG at the Ipswich venue in 2014 and has also raced in the last two Bathurst 12 Hours with Erebus Motorsport.
The youngster’s diverse racing schedule currently includes the Pirelli World Challenge, where he drives a K-Pax McLaren GT3, and outings in both the NASCAR Truck and ARCA stock car series.
DJRTP managing director Ryan Story says he is looking forward to seeing Cindric behind the wheel of his team’s FG X Falcon.
“The evaluation is an opportunity for Austin to spend the day with us and log some laps,” Story told Speedcafe.com.
“He’s quite a prodigious talent and has experience in a lot of different cars.
“We’re excited to be able to see what he can do in one of our cars.”
With DJRTP electing against running a wildcard at Bathurst this year, Cindric’s best chance to race a V8 Supercar appears to be in the Dunlop Series.
Story insists that there are currently no plans to run a car in the second tier, but is not ruling out an entry in 2017.
“It’s not something that we’re actively looking or conspiring towards for this year,” he said of the Dunlop Series.
“But in the future it’s something that we’re no doubt going to keep an open mind towards. This is a part of that process.”
The two DJRTP Fords will share Queensland Raceway with Triple Eight’s three-car squad, which will welcome guest driver Lee Holdsworth, and Tekno Autosports.
Prodrive will meanwhile take to the track at Winton in Victoria, performing a shakedown of Mark Winterbottom’s new The Bottle-O Ford.
Brad Jones Racing and Erebus Motorsport were scheduled to test at the circuit yesterday, but were forced to postpone running due to wet weather.
Plans for the former squad to return today have been abandoned due to ongoing rain in the area.
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