Last year was the year of ‘Rexy’ in IMSA for AO Racing, will 2025 prove to be the year of ‘Spike’? Back for more, and with a new-look driver line-up for the upcoming season, AO has its sights set firmly on the IMSA LMP2 title.
In its first foray into the class last year, team owner PJ Hyett completed the season and raced with a rotating cast of characters around him, with Paul Loup Chatin, Matt Brabham, Alex Quinn and Louis Deletraz all playing a part.
For 2025, it’s almost all-change. For the team’s sophomore campaign with the ORECA stateside, it has made some key, targeted signings. Hyett will be joined for the season by 2024 IMSA GTP champion Dane Cameron, and by the team’s 2024 ELMS LMP2 champion Jonny Edgar for the longer races, with IndyCar full-timer Christian Rasmussen signed for the Rolex 24.
The addition of Cameron (below, left) to the roster during the off-season is at the core of AO’s push to claim the title and was a real statement of intent.
The American – who departed the Porsche Penske Motorsport effort on the highest of notes after helping the team sweep the GTP titles – finds himself back in the championship but in an entirely new environment and just as motivated as before.
“AO is definitely a team of ambition,” he told DSC. “And I saw an opportunity to jump into a group that has all the tools, all the potential in the world to do great things, and showed what they were capable of through GT last year. Now they have the same desire to replicate that in LMP2.
“I would love nothing more than to be the guy to help bring that along forward,” he continued. “Obviously, it’s not just me, it’s all the other work that they’ve done in the background. But you know, if I could be a small part of that then, hopefully all together, we can kind of lean forward to quite an exciting future.”
Crucially for AO, Cameron doesn’t see this as a temporary landing spot before rejoining a factory team in GTP. He is fully bought in and has a longer-term vision for what he hopes to achieve with the team in this new phase of his career.
“I see an opportunity here to be with PJ for a long time, and obviously, what they’re building,” he added. “Can it win? This is another guiding principle that I’ve always tried to abide by. I do believe this team could win.
I see an opportunity here to be with PJ for a long time
“You know, I don’t really place any more significance on winning the GTP championship, as I would an LMP2 championship. This whole thing with categories and class wins and overalls is honestly a bit overdone. It just doesn’t really matter that much to me. They’re all really competitive. They’re all really difficult. I’m just as proud as having one GTD title as I am of having one in GTP. The satisfaction comes from doing the best job on the day.”
Like Cameron, Edgar also joins this programme hungry for more after clinching a major title in 2024. The 20-year-old Briton was a standout performer in last year’s ELMS season alongside Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz for AO by TF, clinching the LMP2 championship after a season-long fight in arguably the series’ deepest-ever field.
There’s still plenty more for him to learn after just a single year of prototype racing, but the signs are there that he’ll be a force in this area of the sport for a long time. He remains ambitious and confident that he can bring even more to the table for his dual FIA WEC LMGT3 and IMSA Endurance Cup programme in 2025.
However, he brings a mature mindset to the party, recognising there are still areas of his craft he can work on.
“I think there were some weekends, in terms of my pace, I would say that were better than others,” he said when asked about the areas of his driving he’s work on. “On my good weekends, I was very happy. During a bad weekend or weekends where I was struggling a bit more, I wanted to bring myself closer to the level expected. I’m thinking about how to improve tyre management, fuel saving, all of those things, which will become more natural with experience.”
What’s most impressive about AO Racing is the sustained upward trajectory it has been on since it was founded in 2022. Hyett and fellow co-owner Gunnar Jeanette have accomplished a huge amount in a short space of time. There’s been wins, titles and of course a huge boost in attention via its standout brand identity.
Will AO Racing’s stock continue to rise in 2025? It’s certainly going to be a challenge to follow up on its barnstorming 2024 GTD Pro campaign, which according to Hyett “got a lot of factories here wondering how the hell a green T-Rex beat them to the championship podium and winner’s circle.”
But Hyett’s drive to succeed shouldn’t be underestimated. It’s why the ‘Spike’ side of the team in LMP2 looks poised to deliver something special. Hyett has taken to prototype racing like a duck to water and is becoming one of the top-tier Bronze-rated drivers in the formula. This, plus his general attitude to building the team with Jeanette should enable AO Racing to fight for more wins, more titles and work towards launching additional high-profile programmes now and in the future.
“Dane (Cameron) will say that I’m extremely competitive, which I am, so I probably should have more fun than I am, but I tend to get a little angry with myself if I don’t convert poles into podiums,” Hyett admits.
“But the reality is, it is, as an introverted guy like me to sit down at a driver’s autograph table and have people come up and thank me because they’re excited to be at the race track because their kids absolutely love what we’re doing, that’s an unbelievably rewarding experience.
People may be a little confused because we came to win, but we also like to have fun. You can do both things at the same time.
“We’re so passionate about this and we want to get more people passionate about it and kids rooting for us. People may be a little confused because we came to win, but we also like to have fun. You can do both things at the same time. You can attract an entirely new fan base, you can put a smile on people’s faces, and you can also make the race car go really, really fast around the race track with the right crew and the right driver line-up.
“And we are having conversations with organisations in many different industries now that are excited about what we’re doing that will help us going forward. I don’t want to say that we had this grandiose plan from day one, I was just trying to put a smile on my kids’ faces with ‘Rexy’, because their dad’s gone a lot. But the fact of the matter is, like, I do feel like we sort of trapped lightning in a bottle here.
“If we can take advantage of all of that goodwill, it’s a dream come true scenario. There’s still a lot more to come.”
Images credits: IMSA and Andrew Lofthouse
