The team has never made any secret of its desire to field an additional 963 in 2024 in the same ‘Hertz Racing Gold’ livery as the car that made its debut at the Spa WEC round this year and has now revealed that an order has already been placed for the extra chassis.
Jota boss Sam Hignett explained that the team is “making good progress” on the funding necessary to run the car in a full WEC programme.
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“We’re getting into the commercial package that we need to make the second car happen,” Hignett told Autosport.
“We’re not there yet, but we are confident that we will get it across the line.”
“The plan is for it to be a two-car Hertz Team Jota entry next season.”
Hignett would not be drawn on the line-up in the additional car, though he reiterated that Jota’s programme does not require funded drivers.
“We will be picking the drivers in the same way as we did with the first car and we already have some names in mind,” he explained.
On the confirmation of this year’s line-up of Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye, Hignett said: “We’ve ranked the best drivers in LMP2 over the past three years, and we’ve got three of the top five in our car.”
Ex-Formula 1 driver Robert Kubica, who is racing with WRT In LMP2 in the WEC this year, is known to be one driver in discussions with Jota about 2024.
Jota could take delivery of its new 963 in November; Hignett is expecting the car to be finished just after the 2023 Bahrain WEC finale.
Source: Autosport