PR1/Mathiasen Enlists JOTA for “Skunkworks” Operation

Photo: Jake Galstad/IMSA

PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports has called upon members of the LMP2 world championship-winning JOTA operation to provide technical support for its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship program.

Several staff from the British LMP2 squad have been embedded within the Bobby Oergel-led effort according to Ben Keating, who is co-driving the team’s No. 52 Oreca 07 Gibson alongside Paul-Loup Chatin, Alex Quinn and Nico Lapierre.

It’s understood that the JOTA engineering staff are in addition to PR1/Mathiasen’s regular crew, which remains unchanged from last year following the team’s Michelin Endurance Cup title.

Keating explained that performance changes to the LMP2 class for this season, similar to what’s been seen in the WEC, was one of the driving forces for bringing in crew that have experience in that department.

JOTA has outsourced its technical staff to other LMP2 teams in the past, including Team Virage in the European Le Mans Series.

“We’re jokingly calling it the JOTA skunkworks team,” Keating told Sportscar365. “We have a few guys from JOTA.

“We’ve done a collaboration with them for the season. It’s kind of a group effort. We’ve done very well in this series, in this class with that car for a long time, many years.

“Last year we felt like we did well because we had great drivers but we felt like we may have been missing it a little bit on the fine details of running in a spec class.

“The people in WEC have experience with less downforce and less power. It’s a different tire but we felt like it would be worthwhile to have another opinion, another idea, another book of knowledge.”

Keating said that he’s seen gains already after just a few test days together.

It’s understood the collaboration started at last month’s IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona International Speedway.

“We’ve done some testing and they have a complicated sim program,” Keating said.

“But they’ve had so much success in WEC over the last couple of years and have really made some big leaps and bound gains over there.

“It’s been a really good collaboration. Everyone works together really well.

“You have that little bit of concern about having too many cooks in the kitchen but that hasn’t been the case.

“We each have different ways of engineering the car. They’re both good but they’re different. It’s been a lot of fun to explore the difference between both of them.

“I’d say they’re learning a lot from us and we’re learning a lot from them and it’s good.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John