New Zealand sportscar maestro Earl Bamber has had another fantastic year as a Porsche works driver.
The globe trotting expat Whanganui racer added another impressive to title to his already spectacular CV when he and co-driver Laurens Vanthoor won the 2019 American International Motor Sport Association (IMSA) GTLM championship inOctober.
"That [winning championship] was pretty cool," said Bamber from Malaysia.
"It was a long, tough, hard season and obviously we had to execute quite well in the races.
"It's nice to get, shall we say, a proper championship under the belt in GT racing at the highest level. I'm really stoked with that.
"We nabbed a few good results through strategy and in the end managed to come home with a comfortable margin.
"For me, I rank winning the IMSA championship up there with winning the WEC [World Endurance Championship].
"It was such a tough season with all the other manufacturer cars."
To cap an already impressive year off, Bamber was inducted into the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) hall of fame on the back of winning the 2017 World Endurance Championship (WEC).
Earl Bamber returned to Whanganui Collegiate to receive the Honours Tie, which was proposed by long-time supporter Lyndsay Tait.
Following his Le Mans 24 Hour win in 2016, Bamber was drafted by Porsche to race in the WEC alongside fellow Kiwi Brendon Hartley and Germany's Timo Bernhard, replacing the retiring Australian Mark Webber.
"That was a great event. It was pretty awesome that day and be inducted with the FIA recognising sports car racing," said Bamber.
"It was a special night with 27 of the original 29 [Porsche] people making the event.
At just 29-years-old, Bamber has now won a BMW Formula Asia championship along with two Porsche Carrera Cup titles, a Porsche Supercup championship, two Le Mans 24 Hour races, a WEC title, and just for the heck of it, two Bathurst 12 Hour wins.
Over the years Bamber has 72 wins, 130 podiums and 49 poles.
Next year will be just as busy as previous years, which means Bamber could be on for even more silverware.
"I'm still contracted as a Porsche factory driver and will be doing much the same programme as this year in 2020.
"I'll be racing in America, at Le Mans, Nurburgring, Spa, Intercontinental GT and FIA GT World Cup.
"It'll be a busy year racing and I like sportscars, so long term it's what I want to do and I have no real plans to change anything at the moment.
"For me being at Porsche is the best place to be," said Bamber.
Not only is the flying Kiwi good at winning races, he's not bad at owning and running a team either.
Earl Bamber Motorsport entered a Porsche 911 GT3 R in this year's Bathurst 12 Hour in February, and promptly delivered the German manufacturer its first Bathurst title in Australia.
Earl Bamber Motorsport won the Bathurst 12 Hour in their first attempt this year, bringing Porsche their first major victory in Australia.
Next year is shaping up to be even better with Bamber potentially entering two cars and he's looking at other events as well.
"We plan to enter two cars at Bathurst next year, which will be good. We're also not too sure if we want to expand into any other races.
"We'll still do Carrera Cup and will be looking at the Thailand Super Series and maybe the GT World Challenge Asia series.
"We'll actually be doing quite a bit in 2020, which is good. It works with my driver commitments and it's not much of an issue fitting everything in.
"We have to work pretty hard at times and pretty much flat out.
"I'm on my way to Thailand now to meet with some customers. It's busy and I enjoy it and it's fun.
