The staff has by no means made any secret of its need to subject an extra 963 in 2024 in the identical ‘Hertz Racing Gold’ livery because the automobile that made its debut on the Spa WEC spherical this 12 months and has now revealed that an order has already been positioned for the additional chassis.
Jota boss Sam Hignett defined that the staff is “making good progress” on the funding essential to run the automobile in a full WEC programme.
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“We’re stepping into the industrial bundle that we have to make the second automobile occur,” Hignett informed Autosport.
“We’re not there but, however we’re assured that we are going to get it throughout the road.”
“The plan is for it to be a two-car Hertz Crew Jota entry subsequent season.”
Hignett wouldn’t be drawn on the line-up within the further automobile, although he reiterated that Jota’s programme doesn’t require funded drivers.
“We will probably be choosing the drivers in the identical means as we did with the primary automobile and we have already got some names in thoughts,” he defined.
On the affirmation of this 12 months’s line-up of Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens and Yifei Ye, Hignett stated: “We’ve ranked one of the best drivers in LMP2 over the previous three years, and we’ve obtained three of the highest 5 in our automobile.”
Ex-Formulation 1 driver Robert Kubica, who’s racing with WRT In LMP2 within the WEC this 12 months, is understood to be one driver in discussions with Jota about 2024.
Jota might take supply of its new 963 in November; Hignett is anticipating the automobile to be completed simply after the 2023 Bahrain WEC finale.
#38 Hertz Crew JOTA Porsche 963 : Antonio Felix Da Costa, Will Stevens, Yifei Ye
Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Images
The German Proton staff additionally has aspirations to develop its programme with the 963, which this 12 months incorporates one automobile in Hypercar within the WEC and one within the GTP class of the IMSA SportsCar Championship in North America.
A second automobile in WEC seems probably in the meanwhile, although staff boss Christian Ried insisted final weekend on the Fuji WEC spherical that no choices had been made about its 2024 programmes forward of the publication of the European Le Mans Collection calendar this week.
“We have to see the calendars and perceive what number of clashes there are earlier than we will make our plans,” stated Ried, whose staff can be represented on this 12 months’s ELMS with a trio of Porsche 911 RSRs in GTE and an single LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07.
“The IMSA calendar had just a few surprises [two clashes between IMSA GTP rounds and the WEC ], which makes it very difficult.”
Porsche has not put a quantity on what number of buyer 963s it is going to make accessible for 2024
Thomas Laudenbach, motorsport boss at Porsche, stated: “It’s not about promoting the vehicles, it’s about offering the service.
“We might promote much more vehicles, however we’ve a transparent philosophy: if we promote a automobile we need to be certain it races correctly and meaning you want the help behind it.”
4 vehicles, two every in WEC and IMSA, have been launched to privateer groups over the course of the 2023 season.