MOTORSPORT: Another Carrera Cup champ off to Europe

The latest Porsche Carrera Cup Australian champion has won a $350,000 ‘scholarship’ to compete in the Porsche Supercup at European Formula 1 grands prix next year, following in the tracks of Matt Campbell.

Jaxon Evans, a 22-year-old New Zealander who has grown up on the Gold Coast, has been chosen after 11 young Porsche racers from Europe, Asia, North and South America, Scandinavia and another from Australia, Dylan O’Keeffe, took part in a three-day shootout at the Paul Ricard circuit in France.

Evans will attend the Porsche Motorsport night of champions in Germany next month and move to Europe permanently early in the new year to race a 485-horsepower 911 GT3 Cup car in the Porsche Supercup.

“Winning the shootout and receiving backing as a Porsche junior is a dream come true,” Evans said.

“Matt Campbell (the 2016 Porsche Carrera Cup Australia champion from Warwick, Queensland) took this step in 2017 and his career has developed well.”

Campbell won last year’s Supercup, the GTE-Am class at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans and was leading the World Endurance Championship in that class until the Dempsey-Proton Racing team was stripped of its points over a data recording infraction and refuelling stops under the 45-second minimum.

Earl Bamber, a New Zealander who has won Le Mans outright twice for Porsche and been a Supercup champion, is another of Evans’ inspirations.

“I’m looking forward to this exciting new chapter in my life,” Evans said.

French teenager Julien Andlauer, a WEC co-driver of Campbell, gets a second year as a Porsche junior on a similar €225,000 ($A352,500) ‘scholarship’ to Evans.

The junior program also includes coaching, race analyses at tracks as well as fitness, psychological and media training.

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Porsche Cars Australia motorsport manager Troy Bundy said Evans’ success in the Paul Ricard shootout was proof that the company’s ‘motorsport pyramid’ in Australia was the region’s best development pathway for young drivers.

“From the start of the season you could tell that Jaxon was on a mission and that, should he be selected to participate in the shootout, he would be an unstoppable force,” Bundy said.

“We had one of our most competitive Carrera Cup seasons to date and for Jaxon to secure the title with such an impressive performance shows his immense talent behind the wheel of a Porsche race car.

“Porsche Motorsport obviously noticed this at the shootout and therefore selected him as their Porsche junior for next season.

“This really reaffirms the Porsche motorsport pyramid in Australia.

“We initially had Matt Campbell move from GT3 Cup Challenge through to Carrera Cup and eventually win the junior programme shootout. From there, he has had remarkable success racing for Porsche internationally.

“Jaxon followed the very same pathway and has been our second driver to be selected as a Porsche junior in just three seasons.

“A benefit of this has been the tremendous swell of interest in both GT3 Cup Challenge and Carrera Cup locally by young drivers who want to be the next Matt Campbell and, now, the next Jaxon Evans.”

Campbell and Evans have both raced in Australia with McElrea Racing, based at Yatala between Brisbane and the Gold Coast.