Bamber wins in Texas

Earl Bamber testing his GTE-Pro 911 RSR back in June.

Ex-pat Whanganui driver Earl Bamber continues to find international success as he and factory Porche team mate Frédéric Makowiecki won the penultimate round of the 2016 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in Texas at the weekend.

The pair took out the two hour and 45 minute long Le Mans class race at Circuit of the Americas.

It was Bamber and Makowiecki's first win of 2016 in their GTLM #912 Porsche 911 RSR, having to hold off their team mates in the #911 car of Nick Tandy and Patrick Pilet.

Having qualified fourth, the #912 car was strong for most of the race, and Bamber took the lead off Tandy in the closing laps.

Early on, Ferrari's Toni Vilander in his 488 GTE virtually ran the pole-sitting Ford GT of Ryan Briscoe right off the circuit, which led to both Porche cars moving up the front.

Briscoe would eventually retire the Ford after further contact with Tommy Milner's Chevrolet Corvette C7R.

Vilander and his driving partner Giancarlo Fisichella kept threatening the Porche's, with Fisichella having had a tough scrap with Bamber at the previous IMSA event, but this time the Italian got into it with Tandy.

They battled for the lead and trading some paint throughout the laps, and although Fisichella got the lead, Vilander would have to retire as the Ferrari had electrical problems and dropped down the order, just 20 minutes before the checkered flag.

That left Bamber to go after Tandy, with the Corvette of Antonio Garcia and Jan Magnussen's closing in with third place.

But having chased Tandy's tail all race, Bamber got the lead with a few laps to go and survived a scare when he had contact with the Mazda Prototype car, which spun out, but the Whanganui driver maintained control and led Tandy home to win their class by five seconds

The overall race winners were brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor from the Prototype class in their Chevrolet Corvette DP, beating fellow Corvette racers Dane Cameron and Eric Curran by just 0.464 seconds.