By BERNARD CARPINTER - Sunday Star Times | Sunday, 28 September 2008

Earl Bamber has accelerated full-throttle through a remarkable couple of weeks to become New Zealand's driver for the opening round of the new A1GP season next weekend.

''It's all happened very quickly, it's quite amazing,'' the Wanganui driver, who turned 18 in July, told the Sunday Star-Times from Britain.

Earlier this month, Bamber and his family were trying to work out how he could continue his career. He leads the Formula V6 Asia championship, driving for the Meritus team, but they had run out of money.

When he got a phone call from a member of the Meritus team, who had negotiated a test session with the Italian ADM team in the Formula Master category, Bamber drove through the night to catch a plane to Italy.

The test went well so ADM ran him in a round of the Italian championship the following weekend, and he came fourth in both races.

Last weekend, ADM fielded the young Kiwi in the Imola round of the main Master championship? and he won the second race, with the aid of a spectacular passing move into the Tamburelo corner.

New Zealand A1GP franchise holder Colin Giltrap was impressed and invited Bamber to test the all-new Black Beauty? made by Ferrari? at the Snetterton circuit in England on Wednesday.

Bamber performed well in the 600hp racer and will now drive it in the first round at Zandvoort, the Netherlands, next weekend.

''It's a beautiful, beautiful car,'' Bamber said. ''It's got the new Ferrari engine and electronics like a Formula One car and it can pull upwards of 4G around a fast corner.''

With high aerodynamic downforce, the car is so fast through the corners that Bamber is a little worried about the strain on his neck from the sideways forces.

''Zandvoort has some very fast corners and it's a very physical track, with a? lot of bumps,'' he said.

However Bamber, who won the Asian Formula BMW championship when he was just 15 and finished a close second in New Zealand's Toyota Racing Series last summer, will not necessarily continue to race the Kiwi car after Zandvoort.

The team's first pick had been Chris van der Drift, who leads the Formula Master championship and who carried out the first test of the new car at Donington.

Van der Drift, 22, and the team had been hoping he would clinch the Masters title at Imola but a broken drive-shaft on the warm-up lap for race two prevented that.

Now Van der Drift has to contest the final Masters meeting, which is also next weekend, at Monza. After that, he would be available for other A1GP meetings including Taupo in January.

Meanwhile Jonny Reid, who drove New Zealand to second place in the last two series, has been on standby in case he was needed. But Reid has not yet driven the new car which is significantly faster than the old one.

The new A1GP series starts in some disarray, as there have been delays in building the new cars and some teams will be missing from the Zandvoort grid. Also, a major investor in the series, RAB Capital, is getting caught up in the world credit crunch.

However, the New Zealand team is confident the series is strong and they are aiming to win it this time.?