Brendon Hartley has found his motorsport-calling in endurance racing.
The Palmerston North driver, now based in England, claimed the world endurance championship in Bahrain alongside Porsche team-mates Mark Webber and Timo Bernhard on Sunday (NZ time).
READ MORE: Hartley wins endurance title
The 26-year-old, who said he would be back with Porsche next year, was pleased with the direction his career had taken him.
“I genuinely have my dream job,” he said.
“I don’t think it gets much better than this. I could not be happier than where I am.”
He has been racing in the endurance series since 2012 after Red Bull dumped him as their reserve driver in Formula One in 2011.
But his axing from Red Bull was a blessing in disguise for Hartley.
“I made the choice to try endurance racing back in 2012,” he said.
“I took my helmet to a test and met every team in the pit lane.
“I fell in love with it. From that moment, I knew I wanted to be a factory driver.”
He started off with Murphy Prototypes before joining Porsche in 2014 and linking up with former F1 veteran Webber.
But it was not the first time Webber and Hartley had worked together.
“We knew each other before when I was a reserve driver at Red Bull for him and Sebastian Vettel,” he said. “I was always waiting for one of them to break their leg or do something so I could get a drive.”
After two years racing alongside Webber and Bernhard, Hartley said they had become a true team.
This year, their No 17 Porsche qualified on pole position five times, winning four of their eight races.
But their series win came down to the wire.
Hartley said the final Bahrain race was tense.
They had two unscheduled pitstops after issues with their throttle actuator.
“Mark had all sorts of things to deal with on track,” Hartley said. “I think the car stopped three times on track and in the last pitstop, the engine almost did not start.”
Hartley raced laps 53 to 114 of the 190 laps his team completed in the six-hour race.
Staying relaxed in pit lane when his team-mates were in the driver’s seat was tough.
“I was definitely the most calm when I was driving the car,” he said. “Watching was a lot harder.”
They ended up finishing the race fifth, good enough for championship title.
Hartley said watching Webber finish the race from pit lane with his father Bryan was an amazing moment.
“The initial moment when Mark got our wounded car across the line, it was relief, then elation,” he said.
“I will never forget that race.”
It took a while for him to process what they had achieved.
“I did not sleep much, I was too wired from thinking about the season,” he said. “Waking up a world champion was probably when it sunk in what we had achieved together and the scale of the whole thing.”
The team spent two nights celebrating in Bahrain before returning home.
Hartley said winning was easily the highlight of his career.
The win caps off a big year for Hartley.
His team was second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.
Wanganui’s Earl Bamber, a childhood friend of Hartley, was part of the winning team.
“We grew up racing together at the Manawatu Kart Club,” Hartley said.
“I started racing two years before him. In the early days, I went out to the track and helped him learn how to take the right apexes and make a few passes when we were seven or eight.
“I can almost claim I taught him how to drive, almost.
“For us to stand together on the podium in Le Mans after all those years was quite incredible.”
With the racing season over, Hartley has one last major event on his calender.
He will take part in Porsche’s 36-hour endurance car testing in Spain next month, before he returns to New Zealand to celebrate with his family.
