Sportscar365’s Rookie of the Year

Sportscar365 is recognizing its top competitors and moments from 2025, starting with Rookie of the Year for drivers who raced full-time for the first time in a series or category.

Rookie of the Year – Mathys Jaubert

While there have been occasions when our Rookie of the Year has been a driver who already enjoyed a relatively high profile, this year’s winner is a name that, this time 12 months ago, even hardcore sports car racing fans may not have heard of.

At least, that was before Mathys Jaubert cropped up on a Genesis Magma Racing press release naming him as one of the Hyundai-owned marque’s three young talents forming its new ‘Trajectory Program’ in the European Le Mans Series alongside two much more well-known drivers, Logan Sargeant and Jamie Chadwick.

Despite his background in one-make Porsche competition, it quickly became clear that Jaubert was the real deal as he shared an IDEC Sport-run Oreca 07 Gibson carrying the attractive black-and-orange GMR livery with Chadwick and Daniel Juncadella, the last-minute replacement for Sargeant.

Quick and dependable just about everywhere, he was a match for any of the championship’s veterans and was a crucial pillar in a campaign that yielded three wins and might have also resulted in championship success with a dash more fortune.

In the end, it was no big surprise Jaubert was picked as one of the six drivers who will drive for Genesis upon its entry to Hypercar next season.

That a driver who will have barely turned 21 when the 2026 campaign begins in March was chosen above all the other possibilities who could have been entrusted with the GMR-001 stands as testament to the huge impression he made in his first year in prototypes.

All the while, Jaubert still found time to keep his hand in at Porsche Carrera Cup competition, with three wins in the French series and one in Supercup. The French youngster’s meteoric rise from one-make success to the highest level of sports car racing will surely give talent scouts up and down the WEC paddock serious pause for thought.

Honorable Mentions

***In any other year, Esteban Masson could have easily walked away with this nomination, but his exploits in LMP2 machinery in the ELMS earn him a second honorable mention in a row after switching codes from a largely GT3-oriented program in 2024. Partnering with Charles Milesi and Oliver Gray at VDS Panis Racing, Masson belied his lack of prototype experience with a string of strong drives, establishing himself as the quickest of the trio in race trim from Imola onwards. That followed a sensational run at Le Mans, where he topped the 75-lap averages ahead of several more experienced names and was unlucky to lose a likely victory to a broken toe-link in the closing stages. Small wonder Toyota is keeping a close eye on him for its future Hypercar roster.

***Peugeot newcomer Malthe Jakobsen was not only the year’s standout among the rookies in the WEC’s Hypercar division, but was arguably one of the French marque’s strongest performers across the year full stop. That perhaps shouldn’t come as a shock given the Danish driver’s LMP2 prowess and the long lead-in he had as a test and reserve driver before finally being given his chance as a full-timer this season. The quickest Peugeot driver on 50- and 75-lap averages at Le Mans, Jakobsen also shone at Fuji and Bahrain aboard the No. 94 car, even if a penalty and some strategy mishaps meant he came away without the reward he deserved on either occasion.

***Verstappen dot com Racing protege Chris Lulham‘s car racing resume prior to the 2025 season consisted of three races in British Formula 3 and a championship-winning campaign in Radical Cup UK. However, it was with a reputation as a top-level sim racer that he stepped into real life GT3 racing for the first time and immediately made a big impression. Primarily driving alongside Thierry Vermeulen, he took both the Sprint and Endurance Cup titles in GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS’s Gold Cup class, also winning the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in class along the way together with Harry King. He also more than held his own as Max Verstappen’s co-driver for the Dutchman’s headline-grabbing GT3 debut victory in NLS before rounding out the year with a class win in the Asian Le Mans Series’ opening weekend in Sepang with Kessel Racing.