Campbell: More Seat Time “Only a Good Thing” for Penske Drivers

Photo: Juergen Tap/Porsche

Matt Campbell believes Porsche Penske Motorsport’s slimmed down driver roster for the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship and FIA World Endurance Championship seasons will reap benefits on the track.

Campbell, along with Mathieu Jaminet, Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre, are set to appear in both the WeatherTech Championship and WEC this year, after Porsche Penske reduced its driver pool down from ten to eight drivers.

The Australian will return to full-time WeatherTech Championship competition with longtime friend and co-driver Jaminet in the No. 6 Porsche 963, with both drivers serving as third pilots in the team’s WEC lineups.

Vanthoor and Estre, meanwhile, will be third drivers in the WeatherTech Championship entries for the long-distance races while continue as co-drivers in the WEC as they look to defend their drivers’ world championship title.

When asked by Sportscar365 if the streamlined lineup will be beneficial, Campbell said: “Yeah, I think so.”

He added: “My role is sort of switched from last year. Obviously I’ve had a change from ’23 to ’24 and now 24′ to ’25 again.

“Obviously last year the main program was WEC and part-time IMSA for the long races and now it’s the opposite.

“For sure, for me, I love to be able to do both championships. I really enjoy both sides and obviously get to do all the big races.

“This is really, really important to me and something that I really love.

“Obviously me and Jam (Mathieu Jaminet), I think also plenty of miles in the car always helps for the America stuff. The relationship and feedback we can have with the team to learn a lot more from both sides can really be beneficial.

“I think it’s only a good thing. I’m really, really excited for the year ahead, a big year, but I’m happy to be doing both for sure.”

Vanthoor, meanwhile, indicated that he more-or-less has his dream schedule this year, when also factoring several one-off GT3 appearances that the Belgian driver is set for as well.

“If I can personally choose my calendar, it would be doing WEC full season, like I do now, and doing the endurance races in IMSA and doing a couple of big GT races next to that, and that’s pretty much what I get,” he told Sportscar365.

“Obviously I can’t complain. It’s busy.

“If you get your calendar in December, it looks alright and then by the middle of January and it gets fuller and fuller.

“It’s good. It’s what we want to do.”

While Campbell feels the reduced driver pool will help the overall program, Vanthoor admitted that he doesn’t feel like it will make that big of a difference.

“Obviously it depends,” he said. “If you take the example of the No. 6 [WEC] car last year, with Kevin, Andre [Lotterer] and myself, no, because we were working so well together and there was no difference of opinion the whole year.

“But that’s not always the case. Sometimes you have car crews where you have quite the difference in drivers and opinions and feedback.

“In that case, maybe yes, but overall if you take the average, it feels pretty similar, in my opinion. But I’m not in the management office.”