How a Porsche champion plotted an unusual route to the top

Porsche has had a phenomenal season in the IMSA SportsCar Championship by any standards. And not just because it swept up all six titles across the regular GTP class championship and the parallel Endurance Cup with the 963 LMDh, as well as claiming victory at the big ones: the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours.

The successes for Porsche Penske Motorsport also provided further validation of the German manufacturer’s racing pyramid. Championship winners Matt Campbell and Mathieu Jaminet are very much products of it.

Campbell, in particular, has had an unusual route to the pinnacle of endurance racing. There was no karting for him in his native Australia, no international single-seaters, just an understanding that if he was going to make it as a professional racing driver there was a clear path offered by Porsche in the way that there wasn’t in Aussie Supercars, another option considered. 

After three years in Formula Ford 1600 in his homeland, he entered the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge Australia, effectively a class B of its Carrera Cup series using the previous-generation one-make racer.

That was in 2014, when he’d just hit 19 and Porsche had returned to the top flight of international sportscar racing with the 919 Hybrid LMP1 in the World Endurance Championship. Racing that car or one of its successors was a clear target.

“Single-seaters were never an option,” explains the 30-year-old. “I’d grown up watching IndyCar, so if I had gone that route it would have been in America. But I knew from an early age that it wasn’t reachable financially. The Porsche pyramid provides opportunities if you are doing well. At 19 years of age my career path kind of set itself out.”

Funding model of investors in Campbell’s career paid for early Porsche success

Photo by: Edge Photographics

His Cup Challenge campaign with McElrea Racing was a hand-to-mouth affair funded by Campbell’s family and some sponsorship. “That was a race-by-race situation,” he explains. “It was a bit of a mixture in terms of funding – there were a lot of names on the car.”

For a graduation to Carrera Cup proper, Campbell and his family came up with a novel idea: investors in Matt Campbell Racing bought shares in him and his career.

“It was the only way we could see to get the budget to keep racing,” says Campbell. “Each unit – let’s call them shares – had the same value, and some people owned just one, some multiple units.

“It was important to have the right people involved: we didn’t want people who were always asking when they were going to get a return on their investment” Matt Campbell

“It was important to have the right people involved: we didn’t want people who were always asking when they were going to get a return on their investment. If it wasn’t for those people, I wouldn’t be here today.”

This funding structure paid for two years of Carrera Cup at home, which concluded with championship success with McElrea in 2016 and, prior to the end of the series, a nomination from Porsche in Australia to take part in the Porsche junior shootout at the Lausitzring.

He got a junior deal that came with a contribution of €200,000 (then about £170,000) towards a budget to race in the Porsche Supercup in 2017. The investors in Campbell provided the rest.

GTE Am win alongside Christian Ried and Julien Andlauer in 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours with Dempsey-Proton Racing

Photo by: LAT Images via Getty Images

He finished third in the Supercup at his first attempt with the Fach Auto Tech squad in 2017 and moved up to the next rung on the Porsche ladder as what it terms a ‘young professional’ for the next two years. The primary programme in those two seasons was in the WEC, driving in GTE Am for Dempsey-Proton Racing. It yielded a debut victory in class at Le Mans in the first of the two editions of the race on the 2018-19 ‘superseason’ schedule. 

But it was another victory in a prestigious sportscar enduro that was key in propelling Campbell to the hallowed ground of factory driver status. He sealed Porsche’s maiden victory in the Bathurst 12 Hour in 2019, squeezing the Earl Bamber Motorsport 911 GT3-R he shared with Dirk Werner and Dennis Olsen into the lead at the Forrest’s Elbow tight left-hander with just 10 or so minutes on the clock. 

“As a young professional, having a decisive move and a victory at a race Porsche had never won was a turning point as well as a big tick for my career,” he recalls. “It was where I started to put my name on the map.”

In his first two years as a factory driver, Campbell raced all over. As well as another WEC campaign with Dempsey-Proton, he competed in IMSA with multiple teams, likewise in the Intercontinental GT Challenge.

Three of his six IMSA appearances in 2021 at the wheel of a Proton-run WeatherTech Porsche in GTD came alongside Jaminet. They would be paired together in the new GT Daytona Pro class at Pfaff Motorsports in 2022.

They ended up winning the title with the Canadian operation after kicking off the season with a Daytona victory. Two drivers whose careers had more or less mirrored each other’s – they became factory drivers at the same time – were already firm friends.

Campbell’s late move to take 2019 Bathurst 12H win – shared with Dirk Werner and Dennis Olsen – made his name

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz / LAT Images via Getty Images

The Pfaff campaign was a lead-in to a move up to the prototype ranks with the 963 in IMSA in 2023: Campbell explains that he already knew he would be part of that programme during 2021. 

Campbell was moved over to the WEC for 2024, though he turned out for PPM in three of the IMSA enduros, winning overall at Daytona with Felipe Nasr, Dane Cameron and Josef Newgarden. He may not have been on the full-time roster, but he played a crucial role: only he and Nasr drove the winning 963 for the final seven and a bit hours. 

It was back to IMSA full time for this season and a resumption of the Campbell and Jaminet pairing, ‘CamJam’ some have dubbed it. Their strong relationship was crucial in the championship success this year, reckons Campbell.

“We are good mates and know how each other works. We push and pull each other in the right way” Matt Campbell 

“We are good mates and know how each other works,” he explains. “We push and pull each other in the right way. Coming back together this year has been really refreshing.” 

Campbell reckons they “hit the ground running” at Daytona: victory went to the sister car shared by Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor as much as anything else because Campbell, Jaminet and Kevin Estre were on the wrong end of a call by PPM to split its strategies at the final pitstops.

After second places at Sebring and Long Beach, the CamJam car won at Laguna Seca in May, and kept up the scoring better than the sister machine. 

Laguna victory was a turning point that also kicked off a consistent points-scoring run

Photo by: Porsche

“Laguna was the real turning point, and not only because we won,” outlines Campbell. “After that we were scoring points consistently. Even with some of the Balance of Performance changes, I felt that we were punching above our weight a little bit.”

Campbell now has an overall title in one of the two big sportscar championships in the world to go with an outright Daytona victory, another one in class, two Bathurst wins and a gold medal in the FIA Motorsport Games in the GT Sprint event.

Like team-mate Tandy he has achieved it all with an unusual back story: the Brit started out racing Ministox on short ovals at the age of 11, and Campbell began by sprinting a Datsun 1200 coupe aged 14. 

It was only natural for him to want to compete. He grew up around racing: his family was heavily involved in the car club that ran his local circuit, the Morgan Park Raceway in Queensland.

“My grandfather was president, my aunty was treasurer, my grandmother helped on the food stall, my mother was in timing,” he recalls. “I grew up at the track and wanted to get involved as early as possible.”

That came with the Datsun known as ‘Daisy’. “I loved the shape of those cars and fortunately they were cheap,” says Campbell. “I was doing sprints, time-trial stuff, and then my grandfather decided I better get some coaching. I met Paul Stokell [sometime Aussie V8s driver] and he said I needed to get in a Formula Ford.”

2022 title-winning season alongside Jaminet started with Daytona class victory

Photo by: David Rosenblum / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Campbell first raced a Van Diemen before switching to a Spectrum when he moved up to the national series. But he also broadened his experience in a variety of historic machines. They included Daisy and an Australian rules Formula 2 ASP powered by a 1.6-litre Ford pushrod engine, a car he now owns.

Later on, he got the chance to race a 1980 Fittipaldi-Cosworth F8 Formula 1 car at the Gulf Historic GP Revival at the Dubai Autodrome in 2022. 

“People would ask me to come and drive their cars,” Campbell remembers. “It was very important in my career development because I didn’t do karts. It helped me understand that different cars need different things.”

“There are a few races I want to tick off and hopefully I’ll be at the top level of sportscars for years to come” Matt Campbell

There’s a desire to own more cars, perhaps one of his Formula Fords: he plans to “have some fun going historic racing” when he’s done with his professional career. Where that takes him isn’t clear because there will be a downsizing of the 963 roster for 2026. Porsche’s drivers remained in the dark as to their futures as PPM was hoovering up the IMSA silverware at the Petit Le Mans finale in October.

On Campbell’s bucket list is an overall Le Mans victory after falling 14s short this year in the WEC 963 shared with Estre and Vanthoor: “There are a few races I want to tick off and hopefully I’ll be at the top level of sportscars for years to come.”

What is not clear for the moment is whether it will be with the manufacturer with which he made his journey there.

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