Andre Heimgartner is confident he will be a better driver in his second crack at the V8 Supercars this year.

The 20-year-old has traded Ford for Holden and will race for Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport after losing his drive at Super Black Racing at the end of last year.

Heimgartner joins Nick Percat and fills the hole left by Tim Blanchard who left the team to join Brad Jones Racing.

Robert Cianflone Andre Heimgartner will replace Tim Blanchard in the No 3 Lucas Dumbrell Motorsport Holden in the V8 Supercars in 2016.

The Aucklander had a mixed bag of results in his debut season in 2015.

He had three top-10 finishes over 31 races including a best of seventh at Sydney.

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But as the season drew to a close, it became apparent that Super Black Racing were looking in another direction with Palmerston North's Chris Pither taking the driver's seat for the final two rounds.

The team announced Pither as the team's driver for 2016 in December.

"I was given the opportunities at the start and everything was fine, but like a lot of things, money comes into it," Heimgartner said. "[Super Black Racing] could not survive with no big-paying sponsor coming on board so they had to do what they had to do."

Pither's long-time sponsor Ice Break followed him to Super Black Racing.

Heimgartner had signalled his intentions to race in the Australian GT Championship this year, but that was until the opportunity came to get back in the V8 Supercars.

"It is good to get a second year because it takes at least two years to get your head around the whole thing," he said.

He filled the second-to-last spot in the in the V8 Supercar field for 2016 with Prodrive expected to announce Cameron Waters as the final driver in the coming weeks.

Heimgartner hoped with more experience on the track, his results would continue to improve.

"Each year you want to learn something new and make progress," he said. "It is a big jump going from something like [the New Zealand Touring Cars], to the Dunlop Development Series to the main game.

"There are all the little trade secrets that those guys have been learning for 20 years being in the category and you have to learn them all in one year."

Last weekend he was at Manfeild racing in the New Zealand Touring Cars at the New Zealand Grand Prix.

He was happy with the improvement he made in the class since spending a year in the V8 Supercars.

"You can see the difference big time before and after, so it is pretty cool to come back and as fast as I am," he said.

Heimgartner has taken part in nine races since he returned to the series in the fourth round in January.

He has racked up five race wins, four second places, four pole positions and set the fastest lap time in every race but one.

The final round of the New Zealand Touring Cars is in Pukekohe on April 16-17.

But by then Heimgartner will be back in the full swing of the V8 Supercar season which starts on March 5 with the Clipsal 500 in Adelaide.