Mathieu Jaminet admitted he felt somewhat frustrated to miss out on pole for Sunday’s 6 Hours of Monza by less than a tenth of a second, particularly since one of his laps was hindered by an incident ahead while he was pushing hard.
The French driver secured Genesis Magma Racing’s second consecutive front-row start, following Mathys Jaubert’s breakthrough pole in the sister No. 17 Genesis GMR-001 last month in Barcelona.
Nevertheless, Jaminet believed he had the pace for pole, finishing only 0.096 seconds behind Antonio Fuoco’s pole-lap in the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P.
“Obviously it was a very unexpected result, to be honest,” he told Sportscar365. “I haven’t driven here in six years in the dry and never experienced this kind of asphalt at very high grip before here.”
“There were many quick lessons to absorb. The car felt decent.”
“On one side I’m a little bit frustrated because I was ahead in the last lap and the Alpine in front of me went off in Ascari and I didn’t have a clean run until the very last lap.”
“Looking at how close it was, we were definitely in the game to get the gap even closer than that tenth, if not, a little bit in front.”
“It’s a little bit annoying. This year, nothing really goes our way in Car 19. We also had an issue between quali and Hyperpole. Many people saw that we had to open the car and do some resets and so on.”
“Luckily I could drive it in Hyperpole, so in the end P2 is the perfect result going into tomorrow.”
While it marked another top qualifying run for the Korean manufacturer, in its first season in the FIA World Endurance Championship, Jaminet is hoping it can finally translate to success in tomorrow’s season finale.
Genesis’ best finish to date is a seventh-place result at the Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas with the sister No. 17 entry of Jaubert, Pipo Derani and Andre Lotterer.
“We are starting our last three events in the top-three with Car 19, so that’s pretty good,” said Jaminet. “I honestly feel we could have been on pole the last four events without issue in COTA.”
“I really didn’t have a proper shot at Fuji and had the issue in Hyperpole in Barcelona and then here.”
“Coming two corners at the end, it was full of dirt!”
“It is what it is, but it shows that the car has amazing potential again. If you would have told me at the start of the season you would start the last few events in the first two rows, I would have never believed.”
“It’s a big hats off to the guys working so hard and giving us such a competitive car on the Saturdays.”
“Now we need to translate that performance into Sundays. That’s what really, really matters to me at this point.”
“Let’s see about tomorrow. It’s at least a good start.”
When asked for his prospects for Sunday, Jaminet feels all drivers will be heading into the unknown, with an expected dry race, with qualifying and Hyperpole having provided the first and only dry run time of the weekend on the circuit, which was resurfaced since WEC’s last visit.
“There will be surprises tomorrow,” he said. “Obviously with quali, there’s only been one driver running.”
“So it’s not easy for all of the starting drivers and my other two teammates, it’s going to be a challenge.”
“But everyone is on the same boat, so it’s hard to predict. I guess a lot of people are going to change their car overnight because it was the only dry running, in terms of setups and systems.”
“I really don’t know what to expect. For us, a good race would be if we can finish around P5, it would already be an amazing result.”
“We are lucky to start in the front and we’ll try to stay there and see if we’ve got the race pace to stay.”
Stephen Lickorish contributed to this report
