Jackson excited by Golf drive

The 27-year-old made his touring car debut at the tail end of last year driving in the final two rounds of the championship for Triple Eight Race Engineering.

The Surrey driver won the Pro-Am1 title in the Porsche Carrera Cup in 2010 and took victory at Spa last year in the GT4 class of the British GT Championship.

Jackson is excited about the coming season, but admitted it hadn't quite sunk in given the speed at which the deal happened.

He told Sky Sports: "It came about pretty quickly actually, we were approached at the start of January by Shaun (Hollamby, team owner) and one thing led to another and pretty quickly here I am, standing here.

"We've got a good deal and hopefully we have a good year ahead of us with it."

The team made significant strides forward in 2011, with Tom Onslow-Cole at the wheel during the first part of the season, and Jackson is hoping he can continue the progress in 2012.

He added: "Definitely. The car's shown it had decent pace last year. Hopefully I can progress with it a bit further and hopefully I get some good solid top 10 finishes out of it."

The 27-year-old has admitted that the experience at Brands Hatch and Silverstone last year driving Triple Eight's Vauxhall Vectra gives him more confidence heading into the season ahead.

"It's pretty invaluable because I had zero front wheel drive experience before I drove the Vectra and by all accounts it's a much more tricky car to drive than this as well, so I think it was good to be thrown in the depend with the Triple Eight car and it's great just to have front-wheel drive experience.

"Hopefully with a bit of testing, I'll be able to start off pretty well with it and it will be a good start to the season."