Fabian Coulthard is keen to join Penske’s Daytona 24 Hours effort as the American squad returns to prototype sportscar racing next year.

Penske confirmed its return to prototype racing last week with the operation set to field two Daytona Prototype international-specification (DPi) Acura ARX-05 cars in the WeatherTech Sportscar Championship next year.

The organisation previously ran a successful Porsche LMP2 program in the American Le Mans Series from 2005-2008.

Drivers for Penske’s latest project have yet to be confirmed but events such as the season opening Daytona 24 Hours usually sees crews field up to four drivers per entry.

While Penske has a large pool of drivers at its disposal boosted by IndyCar and NASCAR operations, DJR Team Penske drivers Coulthard and team-mate Scott McLaughlin could be among the contenders for a seat.

Coulthard admitted he would gladly take up an opportunity should one arise, with January’s Daytona 24 Hours likely to avoid any potential clashes with Supercars commitments.

Reigning Supercars champion Shane van Gisbergen has been a regular at the event contesting the last four editions of the race in the GTD class.

“At the end of the day if it works with our calendar the opportunity is there then both Scotty (McLaughlin) and I would grab it with both hands,” Coulthard told Speedcafe.com.

“It was a pretty cool announcement. Penske has been fantastic in IndyCar and the American Le Mans Series and now it has this program.

“I’d love to (be involved). To be aligned with the Penske brand, and they don’t do anything by halves, so hopefully we get the call up. The Daytona 24 Hours would be a great event to go and do.”

Coulthard says sportscars and endurance racing have sparked his interest in the past but he remains focussed on achieving goals in Supercars.

“Endurance racing in general is something I have looked at in the past but for me I have got a lot of local goals I want to fulfil first,” he said.

“One of those is the Supercars championship and another is the Bathurst 1000. I am going to focus on what I am doing here, but in the future I wouldn’t mind doing something.”

The New Zealander heads to next week’s Coates Hire Ipswich Super Sprint with his eyes firmly fixed on making amends following a disappointing weekend at the Watpac Townsville 400.

Coulthard witnessed a narrow series lead turn into a deficit as he fell 158 points adrift of team-mate McLaughlin after finishing 10th and 21st in the two races.

“We just need to regroup and focus on the next one,” Coulthard added.

“Townsville is in the past. We will live and learn from it but we need to bounce back from it at Queensland Raceway.

“We will go through debriefs and try and get on top of what happened.

“The beauty of having Scott in the garage next door is that he has got a fast, competitive package, so we need to analyse everything and see if we can make my car a little bit better.

“You can’t have a good round every round, it would be nice if we could,but you always have a bad one thrown in the mix.

“Hopefully that is my bad one out of the way and we can regroup, focus and make amends at Queensland Raceway.”