ANDERSON Motorsport has signed Porsche Carrera Cup Australia race winner Max Vidau as it bids to go one better in the Dunlop Super2 Series next year.
AMS this year fielded Zak Best in an ex-DJR Team Penske Gen2 Ford Mustang, the Benalla driver finishing Super2 runner-up for a third successive season.
Best had been in line to finally graduate to the main game for 2024 until being pipped by Jaxon Evans for the Brad Jones Racing/SCT Logistics seat vacated by Jack Smith.
In the meantime, AMS went about finding its next title contender and landed on Vidau.
“I had a heap of enquiries about wanting to hop in the car,” team owner Michael Anderson told V8 Sleuth.
“We have been quick all year, a couple of unfortunate things happened but that’s what happened.
“We fell one position short of the championship this year, so we want to make amends for that for next year.”
So, why Vidau, who is yet to race a Supercar?
“Just his consistency in the car and his speed,” Anderson added, while also confirming Brendan Hogan will stay on as race engineer into 2024.
“We had been keeping an eye on him all year and he did everything he had needed to.
“He has raced Bathurst, he has raced Adelaide, he has raced at all of the race tracks we’re going to as well, so that sort of helps out.”
Anderson is counting on Vidau continuing the trend of Carrera Cup drivers making smooth transitions to Super2, as the likes of Cameron Hill, Matt Payne and Ryan Wood have done in recent seasons.
Vidau, who picked up three wins en route to fifth in the 2023 Carrera Cup standings, described Supercars as a lifelong dream.
“Hopefully I can learn from everything they (AMS) learnt last season and we can hit the ground running,” he told V8 Sleuth.
“Obviously I haven’t driven a Supercar before in a competitive nature, so it will be cool to learn from these boys and obviously they have got a lot of information about the car and the car has always rolled out fast, so I’m really excited.
“I have done a couple of ride days with PremiAir which was an awesome opportunity that I thank them a lot for. Obviously any day you get to sit in a Supercar is a pretty good day, so a massive thank you to them.
“But probably the closest thing I have ever raced to a V8 Supercar would be a TA2 car up in Darwin, which was a bit of fun on the Hoosier.”
Taking inspiration from his Super2 rookie predecessors, the South Australian product is echoing Anderson’s lofty ambitions.
“They want to go out there and win, they don’t care how they do it. I have got the exact same mindset,” said Vidau.
“We’ll basically roll with the punches as they come, but it’s always the goal to win.”
The six-round 2024 schedule begins at Mount Panorama on February 23-25, before which Vidau will complete a two-day test.
