Tuesday’s confirmation that Cadillac is joining forces with Hertz Team JOTA in 2025 for a two-car, multi-year FIA WEC Hypercar factory effort serves as a clear statement of intent. Cadillac and General Motors share JOTA’s ambition: they want to win Le Mans, and they want to win it now.
JOTA’s journey to this point has been decades in the making, but the starting gun for this deal was fired at the end of last year. With its first season in Hypercar coming to a close, JOTA was thinking years into the future and made a first approach to Cadillac at a time when it was still pushing to finalize its two-car privateer effort with Porsche for 2024.
“We were exploring deals,” team founder Sam Hignett told RACER. “We were speaking to all the manufacturers to see what might come up factory-wise, and conversations then matured as this year went on.”
This proactive approach paid off. It meant that when it became clear that Ganassi and Cadillac were cutting ties, JOTA was ready to go. The result? After months of discussions and negotiations behind closed doors, both Hignett and David Clark (who co-own the team along with Knighthead Capital and Tom Wagner) now find themselves with the ink dry on a three-year deal to compete with GM in Hypercar starting next season.
Tuesday’s announcement represents a major milestone for an organization that has been chasing a dream of winning Le Mans overall for almost 25 years.
JOTA has had opportunities to win at Le Mans overall in the past, long before it stepped up to Hypercar as a privateer in 2023. But none of its previous programs compare to this one in scale or punch.
Technically, it could have won the Grand Prix of Endurance during a brief stint racing in the early days of LMP1 with Zytek back in 2005. It also operated the Charouz-badged Lola P1 efforts in 2008 and 2009.
Had history played out differently it may even have won the race with Aston Martin. The team placed an order for an AMR One in 2011, but the factory program with the car proved to be ill-fated and JOTA eventually received a full refund from Prodrive before its chassis was delivered.
Then there was 2017. That year it came achingly close (under the Jackie Chan DC Racing banner) to standing on the top step at La Sarthe when – seemingly out of nowhere – it found itself leading the race with an LMP2-class ORECA 07 after the LMP1 Hybrids from Porsche and Toyota hit trouble in the blistering heat.
That’s all in the past though. Now, JOTA is looking to the future with a deal that will usher in a new era and present it with a true shot at glory in 2025, ’26 and ’27. It also, lest we forget, now has an opportunity to win a World Championship too, with a brand that’s hungrier than ever for success on a global stage.
“Sam and I had been looking for a partner for 10 years to move us on, not just to help out in the short term,” Clark explained to RACER when asked about the team’s journey.
“We needed a partner with the same vision, that we believed in, and we grabbed it immediately. That was Knighthead and Wagner (who bought a stake in the team and introduced a suite of commercial backers).”
Compared to its major Hypercar rivals – which includes the likes of Penske, Signatech, AF Corse and WRT – JOTA’s operation is modest, based in a countryside facility in the south of England that has housed its race programs since 2004. But size isn’t everything. JOTA has long punched above its weight and outgrew its modestly-sized trophy cabinet a long time ago.
A stroll through JOTA’s workshop is all that’s needed to grasp why Cadillac chose this bold, new direction for its WEC effort. Every shelf and window ledge hosts a major trophy, there’s artwork and memorabilia plastered on every wall and a beautifully-presented model collection on the mezzanine level illustrates what has been a remarkable journey that dates back to the turn of the century.
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 endurance racing, but JOTA’s presence has endured. From single-make touring car racing, to a dominant role in LMP2, it has exceeded its tar gets at each rung on the ladder and passed almost every test with flying colors.
After watching and waiting as the LMP1 Hybrid era came and went, the Hypercar ruleset’s introduction was a turning point. It presented JOTA with an ideal opportunity step up and show manufacturers what it was capable of.
The fast-maturing category, which is governed by BoP, is colossally expensive for private teams, and if you don’t want to build a bespoke chassis options are limited as only Porsche has, thus far, offered customer cars.
However, if you can make it work – as JOTA has done with commercial nous that secured backing from Hertz, Singer and Tom Brady – you can fly.
Commercially, its success appealed to Cadillac as it weighed up its options for a new service provider through the first half of this year. But what really moved the needle according to Hignett was both its heritage and recent head-turning performances in Hypercar.
JOTA’s time in Hypercar as a privateer has been a fascinating watch from the start. The team has produced a masterclass in staying relevant, despite competing in a field crammed with factories all fighting for media attention and marketing value.
JOTA has never been in WEC to make up the numbers or in this case, fight solely for the Hypercar World Cup for private teams. Its results and commitment to excellence are proof.