JOTA’s conversations with Cadillac began late last year, but the story of the plucky British team from Tunbridge Wells securing a Hypercar factory deal has been decades in the making.
Sam Hignett, the team’s founder and current co-owner David Clark have long held aspirations for JOTA to become a top class prototype team gunning for Le Mans wins overall. It has always been the goal, all the way back to the turn of the century when JOTA began racing with a Honda Integra Type R at the Spa and Nürburgring 24 Hours.
More than 20 years on the team finds itself in Hypercar with Porsche as a privateer after a lengthy stint as an LMP2 team, but this move to a multi-year deal with Cadillac signalises yet another bold new era. In 2025 it will join GM’s ranks and become a full-fat works team, with more resource to play with and sky-high expectations.
Compared to some of its major rivals like Penske, AF Corse and WRT, JOTA’s operation is small. The team is based out of a countryside facility in the south of England that has been in use since 2004. But JOTA has long punched above its weight, this is a team that outgrew its modest trophy cabinet a long time ago.
A single stroll through its workshop is all you need to gain an understanding of why Cadillac chose this team for a fresh start in the WEC. Every shelf and window ledge hosts a major trophy. There’s artwork and memorabilia plastered on every wall too and a beautifully-presented model collection on the mezzanine level that illustrates its journey.
This is an outfit that has grown from a grassroots operation eager to make an impact, to a major player in international motorsport with a long-term vision.
Private teams come and go on a yearly basis in this sport, but JOTA’s presence has endured, from single-make touring car racing, to a brief stint in the early days of LMP1 with Zytek, GT competition as an Aston Martin customer, then back again to prototype racing through multiple eras of LMP2 with Zytek, Gibson and now ORECA.
Had history played out a little differently, it could have re-joined the top class ranks of ACO racing way back in 2011, right before the FIA WEC was launched. Back then it felt ready to take on a major programme and placed an order for an AMR-One that would have seen it become an LMP1 team with Aston Martin as a flagship customer. Luckily for Hignett and his backers at the time, when that programme faltered it received a full refund.
With that project shelved, JOTA carried on in pursuit of glory at Le Mans and the right deal. It watched and waited as the LMP1 Hybrid era came and went and costs in LMP2 gradually escalated, the category gradually morphing into the breeding ground for privately-funded ‘super teams’ we see today.
The introduction of the Hypercar ruleset, as it turned out, finally presented the perfect time to strike back in 2023.
The category, which is governed by BoP, is extremely expensive for private teams and options are limited too, as only Porsche offers off-the-shelf customer cars. However, if you can make it work – as JOTA has done with the commercial nous that secured eye-catching backing from Hertz, Singer and Brady – you can fly because in performance terms the playing field is more level than ever before.
JOTA’s pair of 963s have found a way to stay relevant in a field crammed with factories all fighting for media attention and marketing value. The team’s #12 even won a race, in dramatic circumstances back at Spa, a feat that Cadillac has been unable to achieve to this point with its current service provider.
Laura Wontrop-Klauser and the management team around her at GM have the clear goal to win Le Mans with the V-Series.R. With the move to bring JOTA onboard they’ve shaken things up, investing in expertise from a team that has three Le Mans class wins to its name and a swathe of titles from its campaigns in the FIA WEC, ELMS and Asian Le Mans Series.
“We present each team member a watch after Le Mans wins,” Sam Hignett tells DSC, “and we have nine members of staff now with the complete set. We’re a tight-knit, longstanding group.”
“What makes JOTA a special team,” Clark adds, “is the way it treats other people, and the way it does things. We always treat people with respect.”
JOTA’s strengths – of which there are many – add up to create a package that Cadillac couldn’t look past. Thus, Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA is being formed over the off-season, with a three-year commitment and an expanded two-car programme. General Motors believes this project will deliver the goods.
“Stepping into Hypercar with one car and an LMP2 car last year was good for us,” Hignett reflects, “it was middle ground before running two Hypercars this year. It wasn’t night and day, but the step was significant, you need more resources in different places.
“But we’d already begun talking to Cadillac (before the 2024 season began). It first started with them at the end of last year, we were exploring deals, and we were speaking to all the manufacturers to see what might come up factory wise. Conversations then matured as this year went on.”
It’s worth mentioning that had Ganassi and Cadillac not split, and no other deal come to fruition, the Porsche privateer programme would have continued into 2025. There was no immediate pressure to sign, as time was not expiring on the commercial backing for the current effort.
“I think we’d have just continued,” Hignett explains. “The goal is to always be at the sharp end in the WEC and LMDh. We’ve got magnificent sponsorship from Hertz and great backing from our partners at Knighthead, the private equity firm.
“And for us the results have been great, you always want to achieve more but to have won a race overall and been on the podium, is great.
“I would hope that whatever happened the ACO and LMEM wouldn’t have taken the entries off us if we stayed privateer. The grid’s getting full now though, isn’t it, and there are going to be some changes.”
The Cadillac door did open though, and JOTA quickly pounced.
“We were honest with Porsche when this progressed, from the beginning,” Hignett says. “They’ve been great, helping us achieve what we needed to achieve.
“We have always represented them in a positive way,” Clark continues, “and we are motivated to leave on a big high, because you never know if you’ll want to go back.”
“There was definitely competition to get the deal,” continues Hignett. “I think what we’ve done though is put ourselves in a unique position, having competed as a two-car Hypercar team already. We did that because we wanted to be a ‘plug and play’ option for manufacturers. That’s an advantage we had over any other team looking at this opportunity.
“The commercial element with what we have is obviously of interest, but the bigger element is what we’ve done, our success in Le Mans and WEC. That’s been our selling point.”
JOTA is already working hand-in-hand with Cadillac to prepare for 2025, as the driver roster and the scale of its test programme are being finalised.
A handful of questions are outstanding as the end of the 2024 season approaches. But what we do know is that both cars are set to be factory cars, driven by factory drivers. JOTA will have a say in who gets the nod though, so the phones on reception are sure to be red hot and glowing for weeks to come…
“We will definitely have lots of GM people around us, and powertrain people especially,” explains Hignett. “But fundamentally, I don’t think there will be massive changes because of the GM support.
“It’s a joint effort between our team and GM. I think you could have your arm forced in some situations like this, but we have an open dialogue and it’s been fantastic.
“There’s a lot of excitement from our side, about this programme and about racing the V-Series.R. We’ve learned a lot from going LMDh racing in WEC and we know this car, we’ve competed against it and know it’s strong. It’s a title-winner and has been on the podium at Le Mans.”
Looking ahead, with a stable multi-year deal and a major manufacturer behind it, Hignett, Clark and co. can now afford to look not only at the team’s long-term future in the WEC, but further afield too.
“There’s definitely potential to do Daytona,” he teases. “Not in the near future, because we need to get our act together running the car, but it would be good for us to return there. Next year we will certainly be on site with a presence though, supporting the American Cadillac teams.
“You get these deals done, but you’ve actually got to make it happen and then work. So there’s an enormous amount of work going on behind the scenes just to get us up and running and competitive as soon as we start next season in Qatar.
“It will be quite a challenge for us and I don’t think it’s sunk in yet.”
