The iconic Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000 has added another wildcard entry to the starting grid, with IndyCar drivers Alexander Rossi and James Hinchcliffe to take on the mountain in a Walkinshaw Andretti United (WAU) entry.

The pair will steer a Holden Commodore, working in collaboration with Andretti Autosport and United Autosports, with engineering and mechanical staff from each organisation to join local WAU team members.

While Rossi currently races in the USA’s IndyCar Series – where he was the series’ runner up in 2018, he’s also driven in Formula 1, making five appearances for Marussia in 2015.

In what might be an important component to their Bathurst campaign, fellow IndyCar pilot, Hinchcliffe, won’t be making his first Supercars appearance, having driven with Michael Caruso in the Gold Coast 600 in 2012.

The pair will get to fine tune their Supercars skills at a test event in Winton in early October before the race around Mount Panorama gets underway on 10 October.

“It’s going to be a steep learning curve and I’m very aware of that,” Rossi said.

“I’ve got a few friends who are Supercars drivers, so I know how talented the competition is, and how challenging this specific racetrack is, but at the same time it’s a really exciting challenge and something that has been on my target list for a long time.

“Excited and scared, I think those are two good words, excited and scared go hand in hand with Mt Panorama. It’s a really high-speed and high-commitment track with a lot of blind corners, circuit knowledge is really key there, so the fact that I don’t have any will make it really interesting.”

Hinchcliffe said he was eager to get back behind the wheel of Australia’s most famous category, competing against the stars of the Virgin Australia Supercars Championship.

“Having done an event with them some years ago, I think I’ll maybe get a little bit more comfortable shifting with my left hand a little bit quicker than Alex maybe, but it was quite some time ago and I think a lot has changed with the cars since then,” Hinchcliffe said.

“It will be a learning curve for both of us but the test days will give us enough time to get a little bit comfortable with the cars before we have to go learn one of the most daunting tracks in motorsport.”