{"id":160032,"date":"2026-02-18T17:01:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160032\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T17:01:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T17:01:11","slug":"bamber-to-join-bourdais-in-mx-5-cup-round-at-st-pete-sportscar365","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/160032\/","title":{"rendered":"Bamber to Join Bourdais in MX-5 Cup Round at St. Pete \u2013 Sportscar365"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-141969\" class=\"size-full wp-image-141969\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/bamber-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1000\" height=\"600\"  \/><\/p>\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-141969\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Mazda MX-5 Cup<\/p>\n<p>After making his Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin debut at Martinsville Speedway last October, Earl Bamber has returned for another crack at the series.<\/p>\n<p>The two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner will rejoin Hendricks Motorsports for Rounds 3 and 4 at the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg street course, joining fellow Cadillac factory driver Sebastien Bourdais, <a href=\"https:\/\/sportscar365.com\/other-series\/bourdais-to-make-mx-5-cup-debut-at-st-pete-for-charity\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who was confirmed last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>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<p>\u201cI\u2019m really looking forward to getting back into the Mazda field and into the car,\u201d he said. \u201cI had a great time at Martinsville and it\u2019s such a welcoming paddock.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\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<p>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.<\/p>\n<p>Making the podium at St. Pete amongst a talented MX-5 Cup grid will be a much tougher task for the Kiwi.<\/p>\n<p>Bamber and Bourdais will only have one practice session at St. Pete before qualifying on Friday, Feb. 27. Race 1 is scheduled for 7:30 a.m. ET on Sat., Feb. 28. Race 2 goes green at 4 p.m. ET on Sunday, March 1.<\/p>\n<p>Both races will be live streamed on IMSA\u2019s YouTube channel.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/eb0bdb6c5958200b684efd47356c4ff04a0d9cc9493aca42127a4990fc233001.jpeg\"  class=\"avatar avatar-60 photo\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\/>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>The latest news, photos and video features from the trusted Sportscar365 web staff.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/ss365-1.png\"\/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Mazda MX-5 Cup After making his Whelen Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by Michelin debut at Martinsville Speedway&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":160033,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-160032","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\/160032","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=160032"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160032\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160032"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160032"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160032"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}