diff --git a/hack/e2e.sh b/hack/e2e.sh
index 953ff29f02..97a8ba8898 100755
--- a/hack/e2e.sh
+++ b/hack/e2e.sh
@@ -2,9 +2,26 @@
 
 set -euo pipefail
 
+OPENSHIFT_CI=${OPENSHIFT_CI:-""}
+E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH=${E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH:-""}
+GIT_BRANCH_ARGS=""
+
+if [ "$OPENSHIFT_CI" == "true" ]; then # detect ci environment there
+  E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH=${PULL_BASE_REF} # use target branch as E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH for handling backports correctly
+fi;
+
+if [ "$E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH" != "" ]; then
+  echo "cloning branch $E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH"
+  GIT_BRANCH_ARGS="--branch ${E2E_RELEASE_BRANCH} --single-branch"
+fi;
+
 unset GOFLAGS
 tmp="$(mktemp -d)"
 
-git clone "https://github.com/openshift/cluster-api-actuator-pkg.git" "$tmp"
+pushd "$tmp"
+  git clone ${GIT_BRANCH_ARGS} --depth 1 "https://github.com/openshift/cluster-api-actuator-pkg.git" .
+  echo "git branch: $(git status -b -s)"
+  echo "latest git commit: $(git --no-pager log --oneline -1)"
+popd
 
-exec make -C "$tmp" test-e2e
\ No newline at end of file
+exec make -C "$tmp" test-e2e