Jacques Villeneuve will get a surprise V8 Supercars outing in the next round in Townsville on July 6-8 to fill in for Greg Murphy on the Kelly Racing Holden team.
The 1997 Formula 1 World Champion has been drafted in for a one-off outing while Murphy continues to recover from surgery on a back injury sustained during the Adelaide event in March.
Villeneuve has prior V8 experience from the 2010 Surfers Paradise event, in which he was among the international guest drivers, finishing fifth in race two alongside Paul Dumbrell in the Rod Nash/Ford Performance Racing entry.
"I feel for Greg Murphy having to miss a number of races in the championship, as there is nothing worse for a race driver than sitting on the sidelines with an injury and not being able to accumulate points in the series," said Villeneuve.
"When this opportunity came up only one week ago, the stars all aligned and thankfully my commitments with the NASCAR Nationwide Penske team in America and Porsche Supercup in Europe allowed me to grab the Pepsi Max Crew seat for the Townsville race in an instant."
Villeneuve is making the first of his two scheduled NASCAR Nationwide Series appearances with Penske at Elkhart Lake this weekend.
Murphy is not expected to return to the his Kelly V8 seat until September. V8 Development Series driver David Russell has stood in for him so far.