Another young Kiwi racing car driver has moved up the slippery pole of international motorsport. A few weeks ago Earl Bamber clinched the 2013 Porsche Carrera Cup Asia championship with an emphatic victory in Shanghai after motoring from pole to take the title with a race to spare.
As a reward for his sterling work in the Porsche series, Bamber was given a chance to showcase his talents with the Porsche Motorsport International Cup Scholarship. Eight spots were awarded to the best drivers in each of the seven regional Porsche one-make series around the world, plus one more.
Porsche Motorsport had the eight drivers compete against one another in the new Porsche 911 GT3 Cup at the Motorsportarena track in Oschersleben, Germany, over two days. To be eligible for the shoot-out, drivers had to be under 26 and show talents other than just being able to go fast.
Last weekend the head honchos at Porsche Motorsport announced Bamber was their man, and he gets 200,000 ($324,675) to put towards a fulltime drive in the 2014 Porsche Mobile 1 Supercup - the premier support category to Formula One.
"It's absolutely fantastic being able to win the scholarship," said Bamber. "It was a goal of mine at the start of the year to get into the scholarship programme and then to win it against such strong competition is really incredible.