Cameron Already Feeling “Quite Comfortable” in AO’s LMP2 Car

Photo: Brandon Badraoui/IMSA

Dane Cameron says he already feels comfortable at the wheel of AO Racing’s Oreca 07 Gibson, despite his limited LMP2 experience,  as the four-time IMSA champion embarks on the latest chapter in his storied sports car racing career.

Cameron, who won the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP title alongside Felipe Nasr, was dropped from Porsche Penske Motorsport’s lineup for 2025, resulting in the 36-year-old securing a season-long LMP2 ride with the Gunnar Jeannette-led AO Racing squad.

He is one of a number of high-profile drivers, including Sebastien Bourdais, to join the LMP2 ranks this year.

When asked by Sportscar365 on his comfort level in the Oreca, which served as the underpinning of the Acura ARX-05 that he drove to the 2019 IMSA DPi title, Cameron indicated that he already feels at home.

Besides the previous chassis experience, Cameron made three FIA World Endurance Championship starts in the LMP2-spec Oreca with Team Penske in 2022.

“I feel quite comfortable,” he said. “Having spent four years in the basis of this chassis, which was in DPi with Acura, it’s all pretty familiar.

“The big change is really just the systems side, obviously being a spec category, asking a lot of questions about what’s off limits and what’s not. Just trying to understand the rules.

“We have a good team that’s experienced with the car, a good engineering group that’s also very experienced with the car. I’m leaning on them a little bit.

“In terms of the feeling, that’s all pretty standard stuff. I know what I like out of the race car and what makes me happy and know what it takes to win the deal.

“I’m still navigating by that compass and lean on the people that are experienced to know what’s right or wrong.

“There are a few little details to the car, but I feel like we have a good group around me to help with that.”

Teamed with team owner and Bronze-rated driver PJ Hyett, Cameron is hoping he can “steer the ship” and help get the ‘Spike the Dragon’-liveried LMP2 car its first victory.

“For me, what AO in particular and with PJ is to lead the program in a way,” he said. “It’s a very new team, built with experienced people, but having someone that can steer the ship a little bit, bringing quite some years of experience in sports cars, for all the small details.

“That’s what really makes the difference. The focus on the way that I like this championship, the way I like to race these races, [to have] more of a global perspective on the whole thing.

“You can put anybody in to drive it but at the end of the day you need to lift this whole team up.

“That’s what we’re both after. I think it’s going to be a good team with putting the resources with everything we need to be competitive.

“PJ is quite new to racing but he’s shown his speed and his natural talent, which is quite strong. It’s about helping him develop and evolve.

“We saw that he had lots of pole positions but then some small mistakes. Hopefully I can be a bit of a guide for him to keep him out of some of these traps and get these wins and successes that he’s after.

“He’s a competitive guy and he wants to win. Hopefully I can help bring the team forward.”

Cameron on Drive for Five IMSA Titles

With IMSA championships in GTD (2014), Prototype/DP (2016), DPi (2019) and GTP (2024), Cameron said he’s hoping to add LMP2 to the list at seasons’ end.

“It’s definitely something I’m proud of, having won four, and to [each] be in a slightly different ruleset, I think is also quite cool, across the old DPs, the DPi era and GTP and GTD,” he said.

“It’s cool to have one in all these different formulas that have come through IMSA in the last ten years or so.

“It would be nice to get another one, of course. But the good and bad thing for Daytona and the championship is that you can look at it purely as one race.

“It’s the first race, everyone’s on zero. You don’t have to worry about anything else.

“From experience, you can still win the championship even with a pretty bad Daytona, so it’s not necessarily key to winning the deal.

“It certainly helps. It was a big help for Felipe [Nasr] and I last year to start off in the lead. But at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter.

“For sure in LMP2, there’s not a ton of races so you don’t want to give up a huge amount of points.

“We’ll go to Daytona clearly focused about Daytona and then carry on from there.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John