Jota Sport to Contest 4H Spa Ahead of WEC Round

FIA World Endurance Championship LMP2 front-runner Jota Sport has signed up to contest the four-hour European Le Mans Series race at Spa-Francorchamps on August 9.

The British squad, which runs two Oreca 07 Gibsons in the WEC, plans to field a single Oreca in the ELMS event which falls a week before the world championship’s visit to Spa.

Jake Dennis, Anthony Davidson and Roberto Gonzalez will share the wheel for Jota’s first series appearance in four years.

Former DTM driver Dennis was due to compete in GT3s this year with the Jota-supported R-Motorsport Aston Martin team, before that program was pulled in early July.

The Brit is now set to resume his season with his third career LMP2 outing, following on from appearances at Spa and Le Mans with the Jota-run G-Drive Racing crew in 2016.

Both Davidson and Gonzalez, who share Jota’s No. 38 Oreca in WEC with Antonio Felix da Costa, are new to ELMS competition although Davidson did represent the Peugeot factory LMP1 squad in the championship’s Le Mans Series forebear.

Jota last contested the ELMS in 2016, when it supported G-Drive’s LMP2 title-winning campaign with Harry Tinknell, Giedo van der Garde and Simon Dolan.

After running programs in both ELMS and WEC, Jota shifted its focus to the latter in 2017 when it finished second overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Jackie Chan DC Racing.

Jota continued with two Jackie Chan cars through the 2018-19 WEC ‘super season’ before placing one of those entries under its own name for the ongoing 2019-20 series.

WEC Squads Add to GTE Entry

A handful of WEC teams have also committed to the 4 Hours of Spa in GTE, including the GTE-Am championship-leading AF Corse squad.

Francois Perrodo and Emmanuel Collard will be joined by WRT Audi DTM driver Harrison Newey in the No. 83 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo that usually also features Nicklas Nielsen.

Furthermore, British team Red River Sport has committed its Ferrari for the ELMS round with Johnny Mowlem, Charlie Hollings and Bonamy Grimes set to share the wheel.

Thomas Flohr and Francesco Castellacci, who share the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari in WEC with Giancarlo Fisichella, are also signed up for the 4 Hours of Spa.

These additions, plus that of the No. 98 Aston Martin Vantage GTE which also contested the 4 Hours of Le Castellet, have brought the GTE class up to 12 entries for Spa.

According to the provisional entry list, this means the GTE class will have the same number of cars as the LMP3 category, while there are a total of 16 LMP2 cars shown.

Several WEC teams also run full-time programs in ELMS including United Autosports, Cool Racing, AF Corse, Proton Competition and TDS Racing, which runs programs for G-Drive Racing in Europe and Racing Team Nederland on the global stage.