An invitation during the Paul Ricard ELMS weekend to visit IDEC Sport’s stunning new headquarters gave DSC the opportunity to catch up with team principal Nic Minassian.
The ex-Peugeot factory driver is now in day-to-day charge of the team’s ELMS, Le Mans and Genesis Magma Racing Trajectory Programme efforts, filling up his schedule. And, after two of the six rounds in the ELMS, 2025 looks like it’s going to be a memorable one. The Genesis Magma-backed crew leads the way in the title race convincingly, with a class win and an overall win for the 2025 LMP2-debuting trio of Dani Juncadella, Jamie Chadwick and Mathys Jaubert.
Chadwick and Jaubert also took part in the Le Mans 24 Hours with the team alongside Genesis factory driver Andre Lotterer. It didn’t quite go to plan, as a lost wheel saw the car retire after 206 laps. However, in an overarching sense, it was another hugely encouraging performance overall for the crew, who were running third in class when it all went wrong.
The sister car also featured at the sharp end of the race, though another heartbreaking wheel nut failure – this time for Job van Uitert in the closing stages of the race – led to a bruising double retirement.
Nevertheless, the team is back in action this weekend at Imola for Round 3 of the ELMS season and hungry for more success.
The team’s uptick in form, it seems, can be partly attributed to its new facility. It is truly impressive, forming part of a more widespread development conceived and built by Patrice Lafargue’s property company, which also includes the new Genesis Hypercar programme HQ.
“I’m very proud of this place and of the team,” said Nic as DSC took a look at the facilities’ cavernous seven-bay race workshop from the comfort of the first-floor social club and bar.
“The facility is beautiful because we put a lot of thought into it. Patrice (Lafargue) designed the workshop building. He wanted it a certain way, and this is his expertise, not mine.
“Once we had the building design and the overall layout, that’s where my contributions started. I have then gone in and adapted the way I wanted it, to look and to work inside, the functionality of it.
“I wanted to work on logistics, on the working environment, on the efficiency of the workshop. That means looking at what we need and where to put it, lighting, every single plug, and electrical outlet, air, everything.”
It’s an uncluttered and spacious environment, clearly with plenty of design integrity, natural light and flexibility. It’s those factors that have fed into the decision from Genesis to commission Lafargue to design and build their HQ.
“We’ve helped, too, with the facility around the corner for Genesis,” Minassian confirmed.
“Again, Patrice has designed the building, and we have helped them to design the workshop and ancillary spaces. That’s a much bigger facility than this place, on three levels, but it’s now just about ready for them to move in.”
That relationship with Genesis is an important one for IDEC. You’re working too, very successfully, on its Trajectory Programme for emerging drivers, as well as assisting the development of its core car crew?
“We’re tweaking, tweaking, tweaking, and because we have these great facilities, and for this partnership with Genesis, you need to always up your game.
“It’s a great way to get focus. That’s why I like having that pressure. Yes, it is more work, no doubt about it. But it pushes you to excel a little bit more in what you do.
“That’s what we’ve done over the winter. We started preparing it last year already, and now we have pushed it a little bit further into organisation, into getting some experience as well with the push coming from Genesis, because, you know, we are here to give them the ladder to make their own team.
“Rest assured that they know what they’re doing at Genesis, though. Obviously, there is something suitable for us to learn from them and vice versa.”
Is the relationship between IDEC and Genesis set to continue beyond this year?
“I think you need to take one step at a time. The Trajectory Programme is very interesting because you have young, young talent. We have a team in LMP2 that knows the game.
“That helps us to assess and to support the drivers. I’m here as well to assess that.
“I like that, working with young people, developing mechanics, developing engineers, developing tyre men, truckies, all of this. You know you’re developing these people.
“They go through here, and then after they go on the other side, over to the Genesis team. But they (Genesis) are, as well, recruiting people without going through that process. You know, there’s some people from their rally team amongst the current crew, but they are bringing new people in too, so they are here to understand more about the specificity of endurance.
“We are like a ladder to help them build their own team. But in the longer term, they are going to be self-efficient.”
Digging into the specifics of the Trajectory Programme, we’ve been hugely impressed with Mathys Jaubert so far this season.
“I just want him to continue without pressure, so that we can see him at his best at this point in his career.
“I like him because he’s a humble driver, simple in his execution but very intelligent, you know? He’s a passionate guy. All he wants to do is be in a racing car, and he’s somebody that this hasn’t been given to him, he’s had to earn it, and he’s very hungry!”
And then you’ve got Jamie Chadwick coming in for, and I don’t think she would disagree, her first serious sports car programme?
“It’s great to have her in the programme.
“You know, I don’t treat her as a woman driving a racing car. She’s a racing driver. In my eyes. That’s it. And we talk like this together. I’m not here handing out special treatment because he’s a woman, she’s a racing driver, and all I want is to make it so that one day she can be driving one of the Hypercars, because that will be a success.”
For IDEC Sport, it’s pretty clear that there are now ambitions this year in ELMS?
“Of course, yes. I am such a hungry guy. It’s terrible! It was the same when I used to be in the racing car, oh good gosh, I was so hungry!
“But then I just can’t get away from it. It’s still in there. So I have to put it somewhere. I have to put this, this energy that I have somewhere!!”
Would it be jumping too far ahead to say there’s ambition here beyond LMP2 for IDEC Sport?
“Of course there is, there is a mission on that.
“When you run in WRC, it is a big organisation, and when you go to take this step, you need to up your game in organisation. And obviously we need to learn from that!
“And, along the way, I’m learning what’s happening with the Genesis programme, how they are achieving things, so I will know how to do it.
“Nobody knows everything; you always learn. But I was very happy to have Genesis, and Cyril, to trust us in being a stepping stone for them along the way, and along the way that they are learning, I am as well.”
There is a key group of drivers in the modern era that most agree should have won at Le Mans: Stéphane Sarrazin, Anthony Davidson, and you. Achieving that as part of the management group of a team must drive you?
“If I am involved in a win at that level, then that, for me, will be the same as winning Le Mans in the cockpit.
“It’s the same in one very important way because I am nothing without my team, nothing. I’m worthless.
“So, you know, I can talk about myself, but I’m not somebody who likes to because nothing would come to me without my mechanics, my logistics crew, without Patrice Lafargue.
“All of them are giving me the opportunity to focus on where I am strongest, and the team too see to it that some of the things that are not particular part of my strengths, the financial side of things, the sponsorship side of things, are still going on without me having to be too closely involved day to day.
“For the future, the ideas are growing all the time, so too are the drivers and everyone else in the team. If you are going to try to win and to grow, then everybody is very important. In sports car racing, you are never alone.”
