Bamber grew up on a farm in the small settlement of Jerusalem on the Whanganui River and began kart racing as a child, winning the North Island Sprint Championships in the Junior 100cc Yamaha Restricted class at age twelve and his first national title at the 2004 Sprint Kart Championship in Auckland. He took a podium at the Rotax Max Grand Final in Portugal the same year.
Moving into open-wheel racing, Bamber won the Asian Formula BMW title and competed in Formula Renault V6 and Australian Formula 3. In the 2008 Formula Renault V6 Asia and Toyota Racing Series he finished runner-up in both championships. He contested several rounds of the A1 Grand Prix for the New Zealand team in 2009, standing on the podium three times, and also recorded a GP2 Asia podium that year aged nineteen. He was runner-up in the 2010 New Zealand Toyota Racing Series.
Bamber entered Porsche's single-make series in 2013 with the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia, winning the championship after a season-long battle and defeating Sébastien Loeb in the Carrera Cup race at the Macau Grand Prix. He also won Class B at the Bathurst 12 Hour with Grove Racing alongside Stephen Grove.
His 2014 season was transformative. Racing in the Porsche Mobil 1 Supercup with FACH Auto Tech, Bamber took the drivers championship with 155 points — becoming the first New Zealander and the first rookie to win the Supercup title. He simultaneously retained the Porsche Carrera Cup Asia title by winning eight of ten rounds and ran selected Carrera Cup Germany rounds with Team 75 Bernhard.
Bamber signed as a Porsche Motorsport works driver ahead of 2015. That year he joined Nick Tandy and Formula One driver Nico Hülkenberg in the Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 entry at Le Mans. The No. 19 car won overall, giving Bamber his first Le Mans triumph at twenty-four years old. He also returned to the Bathurst 12 Hour for a second Class B victory.
For the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship, Bamber co-drove the No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid with Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley, who had replaced the retired Mark Webber. The trio won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright and, together with Porsche's overall team results, took the drivers and manufacturers championships. Bamber left the season as FIA WEC champion alongside Bernhard and Hartley.
Bamber ran GTLM machinery for Porsche North America in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship throughout this period and won the GTLM class championship in 2019. He finished third overall at the 2019 24 Hours of Le Mans alongside Nick Tandy.
He moved to Corvette Racing for the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship Hypercar season, piloting a Cadillac V-Series.R for Chip Ganassi Racing alongside Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook. He won the Nürburgring 24 Hours in 2023. He subsequently moved to the Cadillac Hertz Team Jota and Cadillac Whelen programmes in both IMSA and WEC.
In August 2020, Bamber made a NASCAR Xfinity Series start on the Daytona road course for Richard Childress Racing, a team connected to his family through a long personal relationship. He started from twenty-ninth but finished thirty-third after going airborne over a kerb. He has also raced in the Supercars Championship Bathurst 1000.
Bamber's career represents one of the most complete pathways through Porsche's development pipeline, from junior single-seaters and one-make championships to back-to-back Le Mans victories and a world endurance championship in the factory LMP1 programme. His dual role as driver and team owner reflects an involvement in the sport extending beyond the cockpit, and his two Le Mans wins remain among the most significant achievements by any New Zealand driver in international motorsport.
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