Bamber: I thought our race was done

Kiwi driver Earl Bamber has described how the No 2 Porsche came from the brink of an early exit to claim a famous victory at the Le Mans 24 Hour race.

Claiming his second win at the prestigious event, Bamber teamed up with countryman and childhood friend Brendon Hartley and German Timo Bernhard to triumph at the famous Circuit de la Sarthe in France yesterday.

In what turned into a race of attrition, their 919 Hybrid dropped to 59th and 18 laps back of the lead on the 13.6km-long track when it needed an electric motor replaced in the fourth hour before producing a stunning fight back to win a lap up of the second-placed car.

Bamber, who won Le Mans with Porsche in 2015 but is in his first year as a fulltime driver with the German manufacturer’s LMP1 programme, said the race had again proved it chooses who it wants to win.

‘‘I was driving at the time when I heard it go ‘bang’ and I thought it was our race done,’’ the Whanganui product told Fox Sports.

‘‘I brought it back to the pits and the guys looked into it, and we were back out in under an hour. It was a matter of fighting back into the top five at first, then that became a podium and then a podium became a win.

‘‘We were counting the seconds, a few hours out it looked like it might be down to the last lap whether or not we’d pass.

‘‘It was incredibly tense in the pits and we were going flat-out all the time.