Stevens: JOTA Drivers Will Do ‘Everything’ To Extend Win Streak

Will Stevens says the JOTA Sport drivers will be doing “everything we can” to ensure the squad’s unbroken run of winning in every FIA World Endurance Championship season it has contested continues for another year.

JOTA originally joined the series in 2016 in the LMP2 division and Stevens, Alex Brundle and Roman Rusinov triumphed in the Fuji contest that year at the wheel of an Oreca 05 Nissan.

The squad then continued to take at least one victory in each of the subsequent eight seasons, including when it joined the Hypercar ranks full-time in 2024, initially running a privateer Porsche 963 before becoming the factory Cadillac operation the following year.

But neither of the Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.Rs has achieved a victory yet this year, despite coming close on several occasions — including at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in Brazil — with this weekend’s season finale at Monza presenting the last opportunity to keep the team’s streak going.

“It’s part of the history of the team, getting a win each year is a nice tradition that we would love to carry on,” Stevens — who has been victorious in seven of those nine seasons with JOTA — told Sportscar365.

“I think Monza should be a track that suits us pretty well but obviously the competition is super high now and we just need to make no mistakes and get the best result we can to finish the season on a high to also carry a bit of momentum into next year.

“Like every race we go to, we’re in with a shot.”

Stevens has enjoyed progressing up the ranks with the team and is pleased that so many of those involved in the maiden 2016 season are still part of the squad now.

“Loyalty is something that I value a lot and also the same for the team,” he said.

“For the team, for drivers, we’re all on the same path and know we’re growing and want to keep improving and reaching higher levels.

“What’s also cool is that the core group that have been involved with the team are still there.

“My race engineer was also my race engineer for my first win with JOTA. It’s nice for him he’s still on the car and those relationships only build over a long time.

“It’s mechanics, it’s engineers, it’s team managers — there’s a lot of people that have stayed within the program and that’s nice.

“That’s where you get the most out of people when they feel comfortable in their environment and that’s something we definitely try to keep year on year within the team.

“You’ve been through plenty of ups and downs and know each others’ strengths and weaknesses and I think that brings performance.”

Regardless of whether JOTA’s winning run continues, team co-founder Sam Hignett admits he never expected to have enjoyed success over so many years in the WEC when his squad first joined the series.

“I didn’t know if we would get to the next race, let alone ten seasons on!” he told Sportscar365. “It’s been very good.

“There’s pride in the performances but pride in the consistency that we’ve been here.

“From the point of view of managing to put cars on the grid in WEC for that number of years is great, managing to have that level of success is the icing on the cake.

“We’ve now got a record to try and maintain. We’ve certainly left it late to try and make sure we maintain that record.

“We’ve had a good run of results in the last three races and we just want to capitalize on that and anchor our position in the top-three in the (manufacturers’) championship.”

Hignett also described the number of staff who have been involved throughout JOTA’s time in the WEC as “lovely.”

“When we have results at Le Mans, we do watches and there’s a number of people with the whole collection of watches so that’s very cool,” he said.