Jaminet “Really Surprised” by LMDh Differences

Genesis Magma Racing driver Mathieu Jaminet admitted he was “really surprised” by how different the GMR-001 is to the Porsche LMDh machinery he has raced in the past.

Reigning IMSA GTP champion Jaminet had been part of the Porsche 963 program since its inception in 2023 but has opted to switch to the fledgling Genesis squad for when it enters the FIA World Endurance Championship next year.

He experienced the GMR-001 for the first time at Motorland Aragon last month and, despite LMDh technical regulations being designed to keep performance relatively equal between the various chassis manufacturers, Jaminet said he could instantly feel the different between the Multimatic-chassied Porsche and the Oreca-spined Genesis.

“I was really surprised my very first laps on how different the car could be even though the regulation is so close and the window is so tight,” said Jaminet at a Genesis media event at a Barcelona test last week. “They just don’t work the same, they don’t all drive the same.

“Switching to another one you actually understand some strengths and some weaknesses.

“Now that we start after a few years to have drivers on the market moving around from manufacturers it’s actually interesting to hear the feedback.

“Obviously I haven’t driven the Dallara, but hearing the JOTA guys going from the Porsche to the Dallara [when JOTA swapped Porsche machinery for Cadillac for 2025], we all have the same feedback that it’s very, very different.

“The driving style is different as well. I had to adapt a little bit on the approach because you cannot drive the car the same definitely how I was driving before.

“It’s still early days. We still have to learn a lot and the way the car drives now won’t be the way the car drives in two years, I’ve seen that previously with development.”

Genesis’ chief engineer Justin Taylor is another to have worked on other Hypercar machines in the past, including having been part of the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac operation, and he says ORECA’s extensive LMP2 experience has influenced its LMDh design.

“In general, the ORECA is more building on the past, which is a good foundation,” he said. “You can’t argue that the LMP2 wasn’t an amazing car so it would be silly to not take that learning, whereas the other manufacturers are maybe experimenting a little bit more so it’s a bit more hit and miss.

“It actually amazes me that we can come up with such differences and the lap times are all so similar and it’s not really just the lap time but around the track they do the same but they feel totally different. In the data they look totally different.”

Despite getting used to these differences, Jaminet is encouraged by his initial experience of the GMR-001.

However, he acknowledged the scale of the challenge the team is facing when competing against squads with years of Hypercar experience already under their belt and admitted “we’re going to be off the pace” at the opening events but that “the question is how much” the deficit will be.

“What the guys designed from our team together with Oreca is a very strong platform – there is no doubt about it and we’ve seen that before with Alpine and Acura having the same partner,” Jaminet added.

“For sure, we know the base is strong but the base is only the base. It’s a development race and you just unlock so much performance with systems so that will be the key.

“For this you need time, you need laps and you need simulation – we’re limited by time.

“At the moment, we can’t ask the engineers to do magic, it’s just the process. We need to trust the process, trust the team around, and try to feed them the right information.”