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Feature: Earl Bamber on returning to Le Mans

Reigning Le Mans 24 Hour winner Earl Bamber is eager to return to the scene of his biggest success, despite not being given the chance to defend his overall Porsche win.

#92 Porsche Motorsport Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki, Jörg Bergmeister

#92 Porsche Motorsport Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki, Jörg Bergmeister

Eric Gilbert

Hand imprint ceremony: 24 Hours of Le Mans 2015 winner Porsche Team Earl Bamber
#92 Porsche Motorsport Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki, Jörg Bergmeister
#92 Porsche Motorsport Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber
#911 Manthey Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R: Nick Tandy, Kevin Estre, Rotthalmünster, Earl Bamber, Patrick Pilet
#911 Manthey Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R: Nick Tandy, Kevin Estre, Rotthalmünster, Earl Bamber, Patrick Pilet
Earl Bamber, Manthey Racing, Porsche 911 GT3 R
#912 Porsche Team North America Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki
#912 Porsche Team North America Porsche 911 RSR: Michael Christensen, Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki
#912 Porsche Team North America Porsche 911 RSR: Earl Bamber
#912 Porsche Team North America Porsche 911 RSR: Jörg Bergmeister, Earl Bamber, Frédéric Makowiecki
#19 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber
LMP1 podium: class and overall winners Porsche Team: Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber celebrate
#19 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber
LMP1 podium: class and overall winners Porsche Team: Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber
Parc fermé: race winners #19 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber celebrate
#19 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid: Nico Hulkenberg, Nick Tandy, Earl Bamber

When Porsche scaled back from three to two LMP1 Hybrids for 2016, Earl Bamber saw the avenue to a title defense close. However, the Kiwi is still geared up for his second Le Mans 24 Hours, albeit this time in the GTE-Pro class.

"If you have a good car around here, it drives itself"

It’s hardly a surprise that the 25-year-old from Wanganui is eager to return to the Circuit de la Sarthe. Bamber has developed an intense passion for Le Mans following his unlikely win last year.

"Le Mans is always a special one,” he says. “You realise that the first time you drive out of Tertre Rouge and onto the Mulsanne straight. You're on a normal race track and then you drive onto the open road. That's a special moment.

"It's a special place, also because of the fans and the emotion of it. It's such a challenge for man and machine. If you have a good car, the car just dances around there. You don't really need to drive it. It sort of drives itself. It's got a really nice flow to it.

"If you compare it to Grand Prix racing, you go an hour and a half in a Grand Prix car. We do double, then wait for six hours and do it again and again. It's a mammoth task to get the car to the end."

"It's a priority to go come back in LMP1"

Bamber admitted that it’s painful not being able to defend his shock overall win with Nicky Tandy and Nico Hülkenberg, but the Kiwi's rocky career path has given him a well-rounded sense of perspective.

“It was a quite difficult moment, let’s say [I was] not so happy,” Bamber says of being told the news that Porsche would scale back to two LMP1 entries for 2016.

"The way that I look at it is that we hopefully get a chance again one day. That’s a priority of mine. But we're lucky in the fact that we still end up at Le Mans with a factory GT programme.

"I'm sure there's thousands of race car drivers that would love to have a seat in a factory Porsche RSR in the States and at Le Mans. It's not like we get kicked out completely, we still have a home. In the end we still are GT drivers, we were never LMP1 drivers. We were borrowed from the GTs to do Le Mans.

"But look, you're only as good as your last race. And our last race in LMP1 wasn't so bad…"

Rear view mirrors

Stepping back from a top-class prototype to a GT car, Bamber admits using his rear view mirrors again took some getting used to.

"Yeah, sometimes you get freaked out. Sometimes you don't watch enough and then you almost end up bumping into one of the LMP1 cars. Certainly when you first go out and normally you're the biggest fish, you don't really look behind. It's another one of the challenges."

Bamber seems to adjust between different types of machinery with incredible ease. An impressive 2014 test at Abu Dhabi in the LMP1 Hybrid gave him the Le Mans nod and now he’s making the step back to the RSR without making much of a fuss.

"I try and keep it very simple,” the versatile New Zealander explains. "At the end of the day it's still like another racing car and you still have the same basic principles. You have the car, the driver, and your team of engineers and you need to extract the most from yourself and the car.

”Driving doesn't really change. You go out, you feel the grip, the downforce and the power. Once you do a few laps, you sort of get into the rhythm, figure out how to drive it quick. it's quite simple from there. I try to block out all the other stuff, if you start to worry about everything else around, then you can get so nervous you would never want to drive the car.

"I know the cars are completely different, but in the end it's the same principle. We had a new engineer turn up at the same time as me at the Abu Dhabi test and he asked me: ‘What's your experience with the hybrid system?' I said, 'I don't know, I just drive Supercup cars.' He said ‘What? Why is Porsche testing a cup driver?' I think it also shows that in principle the Porsche pyramid can work very well."

“GTE-Pro will be a freight train of cars"

Bamber and Porsche are ready to take on Saturday’s classic, but are completely in the dark about the pecking order in what is shaping up to be the most competitive GT field in ages.

"It’s going to be a sprint race,” Bamber predicts.

"You won't know the order until the race starts, I have no idea. All I can say is that we just worry about ourselves and we have a better package than last year. I think we're already three seconds quicker than last year. Whether the others go another two seconds quicker or not, that's their business. The team is doing a great job, the cars are well prepared. Hopefully we have good reliability.

"Let's hope everyone is within one and a half second. If it's like that for 24 hours, it's about strategy, traffic, staying out of trouble, having a trouble-free run and then you're there at the end. It'll be one of the best classes to watch. It's all pros in there. I imagine it'll be a big freight train of cars. It's going to be cool."

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