Next season, Jota will take over the expanded Cadillac works team within the Endurance World Championship.
The British team will field a pair of Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh cars within the Hypercar class in 2025, as latest regulations would require manufacturer teams to field two cars.
It takes over the factory program from the Chip Ganassi Racing team, which can field just one automobile in the complete series from 2023.
JOTA Cadillac Hertz Team Logo
Photo: Jota Sport
The VR Series will compete under the banner of Cadillac Hertz Team Jota. The team, which has 10 podium finishes within the LMP2 class on the 24 Hours of Le Mans, continues its partnership with the automobile rental giant, which last season allowed it to maneuver into the Hypercar category as a privateer team with the Porsche 963 LMDh.
Cadillac's switch to the Jota brand, announced Tuesday, was widely anticipated and comes greater than 4 months after Ganassi announced it might not proceed its partnership with the General Motors brand, which competes within the WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship, in 2025.
It has not been revealed when the deal between Cadillac and Jota was struck, nevertheless it is believed to have happened sometime between his second-place finish within the opening race of the 2024 WEC season in Qatar in March and his victory at Spa in May.
John Roth, Cadillac Global Vice President, said: “Cadillac is proud to race against the world’s best as part of the WEC, and that includes Hertz Team Jota. We are excited to welcome Jota next year, combining decades of technical racing experience to achieve further on-track success.”
Race Winner #12 Hertz Team Jota Porsche 963: Will Stevens, Callum Ilott
Photo: Emanuele Clivati ​​| AG Photo
Jota team principal and founder Sam Hignett described joining Cadillac as “the realisation of a goal of becoming a production team”.
“Having competed with the Cadillac V-Series.R for the past two seasons, we have experienced just how competitive this breed is and we are truly honoured and privileged to be entrusted with the task of fielding these cars from 2025,” he said.
“You can count on one hand the manufacturers you would choose for sports car racing, and Cadillac and GM are right up there. Along with Porsche and Ferrari, they are synonymous with endurance racing.”
The drivers of the 2 Jota Caddy cars haven’t been named: Hignett said an announcement was unlikely before the season ends in Bahrain in November.
Asked if a mixture of current Caddy and Jota drivers was likely, he replied: “That would be a fair assessment and it will probably end up that way, but potentially there could be a few new drivers.”
Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn, who’ve been racing for the Cadillac WEC team for the reason that start of last yr, are more likely to move from Ganassi to Jota.
Jota will drive two Porsches this season, comprising Callum Ilott and Will Stevens, the winning duo at Spa, in addition to Norman Nato, Jenson Button, Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen.
#2 Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-SeriesR: Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn
Photo: Alexander Trienitz
Jota won’t begin V-Series.R testing ahead of eight-hour WEC match in Bahrain.
“We have to do what’s right for everyone involved in our current program and finish this season, and then we’ll start a new program as soon as the season is over,” Hignett said. “It’s going to be a very difficult offseason.”
Tuesday’s announcement also confirmed that Knighthead Capital Management, the private equity group that rescued Hertz from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2021, has change into a shareholder in Jota.
Cadillac has not yet announced its plans for IMSA; they can be introduced “at a later date,” the statement said.
Andretti’s Wayne Taylor Racing team will return to Team Cadillac after a four-year partnership with Acura to field two cars within the North American racing series next yr.
Acura has already confirmed that Meyer Shank Racing will tackle the ARX-06 LMDhs next yr, with certainly one of the cars being designed by Honda Racing Corporation USA, the California-based organization that’s the brains behind the automobile's development.
