WEC
Jota announces Cadillac switch for 2025 WEC
Leading Porsche privateer will take over Cadillac's programme from Chip Ganassi Racing in the WEC next year
Gary Watkins
Edited: Aug 6, 2024, 1:36 PM
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Jota will take over Cadillac’s expanded factory campaign in the World Endurance Championship next season.
The British squad will field a pair of Cadillac V-Series.R LMDhs in the Hypercar class in 2025 when new rules demand that manufacturer teams run two cars.
It takes over the factory programme from Chip Ganassi Racing, which has entered a single car in the full series since 2023.
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA logo
Photo by: Jota Sport
The V-Series.Rs will be run under the Cadillac Hertz Team Jota banner as the 10-time podium finisher in LMP2 at the Le Mans 24 Hours continues its relationship with the car hire giant that facilitated its graduation to Hypercar as a privateer with the Porsche 963 LMDh last season.
Cadillac’s switch to Jota, announced on Tuesday, was widely predicted and comes more than four months after Ganassi announced that it would not be continuing a relationship with the General Motors brand that straddles the WEC and the IMSA SportsCar Championship in 2025.
It has not been revealed when the deal between Cadillac and Jota was agreed but it is understood to have been between its second-place finish in the 2024 WEC season-opener in Qatar in March and its victory at the Spa round in May.
John Roth, vice-president of global Cadillac, said: “Cadillac is proud to be racing against the best in the world as part of the WEC, and that includes Hertz Team Jota. We are thrilled to welcome Jota next year, bringing decades of racing technical expertise together to achieve continued success on the track.”
Race winner #12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Will Stevens, Callum Ilott
Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo
Jota director and team founder Sam Hignett described linking up with the Cadillac as “the realisation of the goal to become a manufacturer team”.
“Having competed against the Cadillac V-Series.R for the past two seasons, we have experienced how competitive it is and we are genuinely honoured and privileged to be entrusted with fielding the cars from 2025 onward,” he said.
“You can count on one hand the manufacturers you’d chose to go sportscar racing with and Cadillac and GM are on that hand. Along with Porsche and Ferrari, they are one of the names synonymous with endurance racing.”
No drivers have been revealed for the two Jota Caddys: Hignett said that an announcement wasn’t likely until after the completion of this season in Bahrain in November.
Asked if a mix of existing Caddy and Jota drivers was likely, he replied: “That would be a fair assessment and that is likely where things will end up, but potentially there could be some newcomers.”
Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn, who have raced Cadillac’s WEC entry from the start of last year, appear likely to move across from Ganassi to Jota.
Callum Ilott and Will Stevens, the winning duo at Spa, and Norman Nato, Jenson Button, Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen make up Jota’s roster in its pair of Porsches this season.
#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-SeriesR: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn
Photo by: Alexander Trienitz
Jota will also not begin testing with the V-Series.R until after Bahrain’s eight-hour WEC fixture.
“We need to do the right thing for everyone involved in our current programme and finish this season, and then it will be on with the new programme as soon as the season is finished,” said Hignett. “It is going to be a very hard off-season.”
Tuesday’s announcement also confirmed that Knighthead Capital Management, the private equity group that rescued Hertz from chapter 11 administration in 2021, has become a shareholder in Jota.
Cadillac has yet to announce its IMSA plans, which will come, read the statement, “at a later date”.
Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti is set to return to the Cadillac fold after four year with Acura to run two cars in the North American series next year.
Acura has already confirmed that Meyer Shank Racing will be taking over the ARX-06 LMDhs for next year, with one car to be engineered by Honda Racing Corporation USA, the Californian-based organisation that masterminds development of the car.
Read Also:
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