Bamber bid to finally ‘knock off ’ a long slog
One of the biggest 24-hour races, alongside Le Mans, Spa Francorchamps and Daytona, is the Nrburgring 24 Hours (N24) at the legendary Nordschleife.
The racetrack through the Eifel mountains in the west of Germany is one of the most demanding any driver could face at a daunting 25.3km long.
Globe-trotting New Zealander Earl Bamber completed qualifying for this weekend’s event and will start from
14th on the grid.
“It’s a different race and track for sure,” Bamber told the Weekend Herald. “It’s challenging because it’s one of the last real tracks in the world with guard rails and stuff like that.
“It’s really critical to make no mistakes and get everything right because you don’t get any hand-mebacks.
“It’s also one of the hardest tracks not to make a mistake on and that’s a challenge. The weather also plays a big part.
“It’s one of the biggest endurance races I haven’t won. I’ve led the race there twice by a healthy margin but haven’t quite knocked if off yet.”
The race is unique in that there are numerous classes and various skill-sets in a huge field.
This year, there are 125 cars spread across 24 classes, with a mixture of professional, semi-professional, club and amateur drivers.
Not only is the track a huge challenge, as Bamber, who is contesting the top class in a Porsche 911 GT3 R, has already stated, negotiating widely varied traffic, especially at night, adds to the drama.
“It’s definitely a handful, but this is the fifth or sixth time I’ve been here. It’s one of the toughest and longest long-distance races in the world and a fantastic challenge because of all the different traffic.
“There are full factory teams and cars racing at the same time as a car mum and dad built in their home garage.
“It’s unique and something you don’t see in our sport any more.
“The plan for the race is to stay out of trouble, like normal, and see how we’re positioned when the sun comes up,” said Bamber.
In an announcement last year, Bamber was not retained as a factory Porsche driver.
His race team, Earl Bamber Motorsport did, however, become something of a factory customer team.
He also works with Porsche GT customer teams in this year’s GT World Challenge Europe series as a designated driver.
While the badge and running gear on the different cars Bamber is racing this year are the same, the car set-up might be different and hard to adapt to.
“Porsche has a really good support programme for all the teams and a really good data sharing programme, so that works out really well.
“The good thing is that I have a pretty settled co-driver line-up every race I’m doing this year. We’re all pretty quick.”
This weekend, Bamber is with the Frikadelli Racing Team and his codrivers are Mathieu Jaminet, Nick Tandy and Matt Campbell.
There are two other Kiwis joining Bamber on the grid. Wayne Moore,
69, is at his 27th N24, along with the spritely Chris Allen, 76.