Do you think you can be the next Earl Bamber?
Earl Bamber’s rise through the Porsche Motorsport ranks has been stratospheric. After winning a maiden Carrera Cup Asia crown in 2013, the New Zealander joined Porsche’s junior programme as the 2014 International Cup Scholarship winner.
Last season, the talented Kiwi won the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup at his first attempt, securing a contract for 2015 with Porsche’s factory GT team in the process.
Then came the icing on the cake: Bamber was signed to race in the third Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, famously helping teammates Nick Tandy and Nico Hülkenberg just last weekend.
Now, Porsche Motorsport is once again looking to the future as applications for its 2016 Junior programme have opened with Weissach hopeful of finding the next Earl Bamber or Marc Lieb.
If you think you’ve got what it takes to rise to the top of Porsche’s racing echelons, candidates need to have been born between 1 January 1994 and 28 February 1998 and must be able to prove their participation in a current touring car or single seater championship.
Applicants cannot have raced in a Porsche Carrera Cup or GT3 Cup Challenge series (or a higher-level GT championship) before and applications must be submitted via porsche.com/juniorprogramme before 1 August.
Successful candidates with take part in a two-stage selection process, which includes fitness and endurance tests, as well as a chance to get behind the wheel of the latest Porsche 991 GT3 Cup car.
The chosen Porsche Juniors will sign a contract with Porsche AG and be rewarded with €150,000 of funding towards a Carrera Cup Deutschland drive in 2016. On top of this, Porsche Juniors have access to similar fitness and driver training programmes as given to Weissach’s works drivers.
With drivers like Timo Bernhard, Patrick Long and Marc Lieb all coming through the Porsche Junior ranks, proving a success at this level could well lead to a factory race contract. So, if you think you’ve got what it takes to impress on and off the track, get your application in now.
Comments (0)