Urs Kuratle, the director of factory LMDh racing at Porsche, says the German brand will be sad to see HERTZ Team JOTA switch to competing with Cadillac at the end of the current season.
While Porsche was aware of the British team’s switch to becoming Cadillac’s service provider for its two-car factory Hypercar effort long in advance of the news becoming public, Kuratle admits that the marque is still disappointed that JOTA’s time as a 963 customer team is coming to an end.
“We are extremely sorry to lose JOTA from the customer stable,” he told RACER. “They put in great performances, which was good for Porsche, won the race at Spa and achieved more positive results. It’s a shame to lose them but the step they are taking is understandable.
“On a personal note, I will miss going into the JOTA garage on race weekends. They are a really great bunch of people and it’s a shame that we will lose those guys and access to that garage.”
JOTA’s departure comes at an interesting time for Porsche’s 963 program. On one hand, the factory effort with Penske is going from strength to strength. On the other, the customer program looks set to shrink due to the level of budget required serving as a barrier to entry for aspirant teams and a lack of space on the grid in the FIA WEC.
“We are in discussions on how we want to replace, or if we want to replace JOTA’s cars going forward,” Kuratle said.
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“The difference between the WEC and IMSA in this instance is that there are more spots available in IMSA’s GTP class. That makes IMSA the place to be for customers and there’s not much we can do about that.
“We will see how it goes. We have Proton and JDC and we are in contact with different people. It’s still not a huge market; there are not 10 teams asking for a car.”
Interestingly, with fewer customer cars in circulation, the task of rolling out updates for the 963 going forward will become be easier, but the loss of JOTA coincides with a change in stance from the German marque on implementing “joker” updates for its car.
With Penske leading both the IMSA and WEC manufacturers’ championships, Porsche isn’t quite as eager to bring substantial changes to a car which is winning races regularly, in its second year of competition and still maturing.
“The [planned] crankshaft change is done (not happening), and that’s clear, and we are discussing other things, but there will be no major updates on the car for next year,” Kuratle confirmed.
“In the off-season, we will focus on rest for our people, though there are still things we need to work on operationally. We need to build up cars, too, ahead of January and Daytona.”