Stevens: Hertz Team JOTA Moving Out of Learning Phase

Will Stevens believes the Hertz Team JOTA Hypercar operation is moving beyond its “learning phase” with the Porsche 963 and is now in a position to start executing at a higher level.

The British driver was the first to turn laps in the No. 38 car in the 6 Hours of Spa, where the team debuted a matter of days after receiving the chassis from Porsche, and from there feels the team has progressed to a point where the privateer operation can start challenging at the top of the class on a consistent basis in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

“Going into this season we knew it would be a steep learning curve,” Stevens told Sportscar365. “The car arrived slightly late. That gave people a lot more time to think about it and prepare the best we could.

“Our first time rolling out of a pit lane literally being FP1 at Spa was a big moment for us. A lot of hard work from every member of the team, and a lot of late nights got us to that point.

“Really it is a big task to take on that project a couple of races into the season. At each race we’ve felt more comfortable, what’s needed from the mechanics working on the car, the engineers building setups, and from our perspective as drivers what the car likes and doesn’t like.

“Looking at the season, we can be really proud of what we’ve achieved.

“Every race weekend we’ve made a step forward, and for our last race of the year I feel the best prepared we’ve ever been.

“I think we’ve been fast at different points in every race weekend and now it’s that point in the season where we need to capitalize what we’ve shown and execute a perfect weekend. If we do that, we should be in contention.

“You have a learning phase and then we want to go on to show our performance and attack. We feel comfortable with what we’ve got, with our knowledge of the car, and now we just need to do what JOTA does as a team and over the past seasons and that’s go out and win races.

“Our learning phase is going past us now, and we need to start showing performance at every opportunity we can.”

The 19-time Grand Prix starter compared the Porsche 963 to a “mini Formula 1 car” and drew comparisons between the complexity of systems and ultimately how he believes his single-seater experience has prepared him for the challenges of the LMDh package.

“It’s much busier for us as drivers,” Stevens said. “That’s where I think the experience I have from my time in junior single-seaters and going up to F1 has played a part, where it’s much more demanding of a driver to understand what’s going on with all these systems.

“It’s a lot more homework, a lot more driver manuals to read through, but that’s where I feel I’m strong. Technically I feel very strong.

“It’s definitely a lot more demanding on the driver, because obviously you need to be fast, but there’s so much more you can do from a setup point of view with the car we have.

“It’s more challenging, I like to be challenged, and of course this year is a massive challenge trying to understand everything we have, but also trying to help move things forward.”

Stevens: Le Mans Was Team’s Standout Moment

The two-times 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner felt that this year’s event was a standout moment in JOTA’s progression in the Hypercar class in only its second race with the 963.

The No. 38 crashed out of the lead heading into the evening, ending what was a stellar stint from co-driver Yifei Ye.

Despite this, Stevens highlighted those early hours of the race as the first time the operation and displayed its potential, and that the team took learnings from a difficult first Hypercar entry at the French enduro.

“Le Mans was only our second race with the car,” he said. “We had a little bit of testing, but that was the first time we really tried to show some performance and where we can be.

“I think we surprised a few people with the pace we had, and to turn up at Le Mans, be fast, and race at the front was very encouraging for everyone involved with our program.

“It didn’t end up how we wanted to, but in those moments it helps you learn the package you have, the car we have, and that’s all the experiences we need to go through to ultimately get the best out of everything.

“I’d say Le Mans was a clear, first point we knew we could be competitive.

“We’ve been competitive at every race we’ve been to. I don’t think there was a weekend where we were way stronger or way weaker than others, it just comes down to knowing the package you have and executing that perfect weekend.”