JOTA’S FIRST YEAR IN HYPERCAR

Although fourth place in Bahrain constituted the best result of its nascent Hypercar programme in the 2023 World Endurance Championship, Jota Sport boss Sam Hignett (right) professed himself happy when facing the public at Autosport International last month.

The team’s single Porsche 963 had been delivered only 10 days before the Spa 6 Hours, and Hignett says he’s “never seen a bunch of humans work so hard” as his crew did to get the first racing example of a customer LMDH car ready, which elicited a telling comment from his Hypercar team principal Dieter Gass. “As the car rolled out of the pitlane for FP1, Dieter said, ‘I think that’s the most emotional thing I’ve ever experienced in motorsport’,” Hignett relates.

Sixth on its debut exceeded expectations, and the eight laps it led at Le Mans until Yifei Ye crashed at the Porsche Curves matched the works Porsche Penske Motorsport team’s tally across its three cars. Hignett believes victory on the team’s 24-hour bow with Porsche “was never on the cards”, but reckons a podium finish “was definitely a reality”. A steering wheel glitch compromised Monza, but Jota split the works Porsches at Fuji and was the top-finishing 963 in Bahrain.

“The lovely thing is as the season went on, we improved at a greater rate than the factories because we were starting from a very different point, so by the time we got to Bahrain we could split the Ferraris,” says Hignett. “It’s nice to have ended the season as the fastest Porsche.”

Now that the team has scaled up to two-full season entries, Hignett is happy to reveal that talks were held with Sebastian Vettel, although the “timing wasn’t right on that deal”. But with two strong line-ups, its entire focus now on Hypercar, and a proliferation of strong commercial partners, Jota is well-placed to compete in 2024. “It’s back to the old days of Group C, where there’s no reason why a privateer couldn’t win the LMDH battle.”