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Earl Bamber\nThe two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner will rejoin Hendricks Motorsports for Rounds Three and Four at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg street course.<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (February 18, 2026) \u2013 After making his Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin debut at Martinsville Speedway last October, Earl Bamber (No. 21 Hendricks Motorsports) has returned for another crack at the series.
\nEarl Bamber
\nThe two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner will rejoin Hendricks Motorsports for Rounds Three and Four at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg street course.<\/p>\n
Bamber checked off racing on an oval from his bucket list last year; now it\u2019s time to check \u2018race Grand Prix of St. Petersburg\u2019 off the list, and he\u2019s going to do it with Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup once again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to getting back into the Mazda field and into the car,\u201d Bamber said.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a great time at Martinsville and it\u2019s such a welcoming paddock. I\u2019m looking forward to Saint Pete. It\u2019s a track I\u2019ve never been at, but I\u2019m looking forward to the challenge of street racing one of these machines.\u201d<\/p>\n
A decorated sportscar veteran, Bamber has won an FIA World Endurance Championship and an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.<\/p>\n
He won the 24 Hours of Le Mans on his first attempt in 2015 and followed it with another win in 2017. He won the 24 Hours of the N\u00fcrburgring in 2023 and the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2022. Most recently, he finished runner-up in the Rolex 24 at Daytona with the No. 31 Whelen Action Express Cadillac team.<\/p>\n
Bamber is no stranger to street courses, having won the IMSA GTLM class at Long Beach in 2019. In 2022, he finished on the DPi podium at both Long Beach and Detroit.\n<\/p>\n
Making the podium at St. Pete amongst a talented MX-5 Cup grid will be a much tougher task for the Kiwi.<\/p>\n
One of his rivals is his WEC teammate, Sebastien Bourdais (No. 38 McCumbee McAleer Racing), who is making his MX-5 Cup debut at St. Pete as a fundraiser for the Karts4Kids charity.<\/p>\n
Bamber and Bourdais will only have one practice session at St. Pete before qualifying on Friday, February 27. Race 1 is scheduled for 7:30 am ET on Saturday, February 28.\n<\/p>\n
Race 2 goes green at 4:00 pm ET on Sunday, March 1. Both races will be live-streamed on the RACER and IMSA YouTube channels.
\nAbout The Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin:
\nThe Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin is the signature spec series for Mazda Motorsports.
\nThe series has been operated by Andersen Promotions since 2017 and is currently sanctioned by IMSA. Mazda-powered grassroots champions can earn Mazda scholarships for this pro-level series.
\nThe Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup awards more than $1 million in prizes and scholarships.
\nFind out more at http:\/\/www.mx-5cup.com.<\/a>
\nSource: Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (February 18, 2026) \u2013 After making his Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin debut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159998,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-159997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159997\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}