🇫🇷 Nicolas Minassian

Nicolas Minassian is a French professional driver who raced in the World Endurance Championship between 2012 and 2016, retiring after five seasons of competition. His Racer Rating of 4,717 places him among professional drivers; he competed consistently in the middle of strong international fields but did not achieve the level of sustained front-running success that characterises the tier above. Across 34 starts in the WEC, Minassian scored 2 wins and 10 podiums, giving him an average finishing position of fifth among classified results, which reflects a career spent as a solid midfield competitor rather than a championship contender.[1]

Minassian raced primarily for SMP Racing and spent the bulk of his career in LMP2 machinery, where his most frequent rivals included multiple national and world championship winners such as Roman Rusinov (2013 and 2015 WEC LMP2 champion), John Martin (2013 WEC LMP2 champion), and Ricardo Gonzalez. Against this group he compiled a losing record; he finished ahead of Rusinov in only 7 of their 25 shared races, and behind Gonzalez 14 times from 22 encounters. He occasionally bettered drivers ranked considerably higher, including four finishes ahead of Bertrand Baguette, a Platinum-graded professional and Formula V8 3.5 champion, and isolated race victories over elite drivers such as Mike Conway and Bruno Senna, though these represented occasional high points rather than consistent competitiveness at that level.[2]

His final season in 2016 saw a sharp decline; he failed to score podiums across nine WEC rounds and finished 18th overall. Since retirement from racing, Minassian has remained involved in the sport, latterly as a sporting director for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.