Motorsport: Bamber on track for his trifecta

Earl Bamber hopes to cap off his stellar year as Porsche's poster boy with a win at the Circuit Of The Americas track in Austin, Texas.

Supercup drivers voted Kiwi the one to watch this year — and they were right

Porsche GT Cup car pilot Earl Bamber arrived in Austin, Texas for the final leg of his stellar year racing the German manufacturer's cars. By a long shot, the Kiwi has been the most successful one-make racer since the all-conquering days of another New Zealander, Craig Baird.

Bamber has put an indelible stamp on the Carrera Cup landscape rarely seen before. At one stage the 24-year-old was contesting five different international Carrera Cup championships - Asia, Germany, Britain, France and the Supercup. Even more incredibly, he was leading three of them at the same time; Asia, Germany and the Supercup.

Unfortunately he had to pull out of the German competition due to race date clashes, but made amends by sealing the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia title with one round to go. This weekend he's settling into his Supercup car at the Circuit Of The Americas track determined to take another international title home.

"Although I've raced in the States before I haven't been here before," Bamber told the Weekend Herald from Austin. "I've seen it on TV, videos and simulators and it looks an excellent track and I can't wait to have a go."

Bamber's success this season may have come as a bit of a surprise to some pundits of the sport, but to those who really know how these things work, that is, the drivers themselves, the Kiwi was always going to be the front-runner.

In the annual poll of the drivers in the Supercup championship by the leading Porsche motorsport website racecam.de, Bamber won twice as many votes as the next best driver.

"Jesus," said Bamber on hearing the result at the beginning of the season. "I never expected such a result, thanks to my opponents. However, it's not really a burden on my shoulders, it just reflects our good work in testing."

Two things became apparent over the past seven months. First, testing must have been bloody good as Bamber has been all but unstoppable this year, and second, it didn't faze him being the voted the man to beat by some of his more illustrious peers.

Bamber has a slim lead of five points over his nearest competitor Kuba Giermaziak and then there's daylight back to Klaus Bachler. However, there are two races this weekend so it is mathematically possible for Bachler, 39 points adrift, to snatch the championship if the leading two have a seriously bad day.

"We've come here [Austin] well prepared and I have a good car. I'm in a strong position and the team has put in a lot of hard work this year to get me in the position to win the title.

"We're in a strong position but it has been a long break [between Supercup races] and I haven't been in the car for a while.

"For me though, although it's the last race of the season and I'm leading the championship, I'll be approaching the race the same as every other race this season. I'll try and get the most out of the car and try and qualify at the front of the grid.

"There's no point thinking about the championship as it's just another race. If we hit our marks over the weekend everything else will take care of itself. We know where the sweet spot is in the car so let's hope we can find it," said Bamber.

If Bamber does win the title come Sunday afternoon US time, he'll have completed his own personal trifecta in 2015. He defended his PCCA title, has already snapped up rookie of the year in the Supercup championship and now just needs the series trophy.

"I'm certainly going to give a good try, that's for sure. It was good to wrap the Asia Carrera Cup up so I can concentrate on this weekend.

"We'll be trying as hard as we can over the two races and either it'll be enough, or it won't. If I do win it will definitely be the best season of my career so far," he said.

Porsche AG, and in particular their motorsport arm, must be quietly patting themselves on the back in the knowledge they picked a good one in Bamber to be the recipient of their annual race scholarship. The $320,000 winner's prize went some way to funding his Supercup campaign and the lad from Wanganui sure turned out to be the poster boy for the Porsche Motorsport International Cup Scholarship.