Motorsport: Bamber geared up for longest day at Le Mans

Earl Bamber and Brendon Hartley, right, aiming for a big weekend at Le Mans this weekend.

Ex-pat Whanganui driver Earl Bamber and his Porsche LMP1 team mates will have a tough ask to get back to the same top of the podium he stood on in 2015 at this weekend's 85th 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The 26-year-old made headlines in 2015 when he joined German F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg and Great Britain's Nick Tandy as the team to win the iconic race, the first for Porsche since 1998.

Runnerup for that event was the other Porsche team of fellow Kiwi Brendon Hartley, German Timo Bernhard and Australia's Mark Webber.

Bamber has impressed so much as a contracted test driver for Porsche, since winning Porsche Carrera Cup Asia and Supercup titles in 2013-4, that he was the obvious choice to replace the departing Webber and run the full 2017 World Endurance Championship season with Hartley and Bernhard.

Two rounds into the season and Porsche is trying to keep up with the Toyota Gazoo Racing teams, who posted the first and second quickest times in the first round of qualifying at Le Mans.

Porsche's lap time was 3m 19.71s with a top speed of 245.7km, while the best Toyota LMP1 team got across the line in 3m 18.793s, with a top speed of 246.8km on the Circuit de la Sarthe.

"Driving the 919 at night is incredible. P3 so far in qualifying," Bamber told supporters on Twitter.

"Working on the race pace. It's going to be a hot, quick race."

Earlier at the official test day on June 5, Bamber set the quickest lap time by a Porsche in 3m 21.512s, which was the fifth best time of the day.

Live coverage of The 24 Hours of Le Mans race begins early on Sunday morning at 12.30am on Sky Sport Pop-up 4 (Channel 58) and will cover the entire race from start to finish.

Racing starts from 1am.