The apprenticeship that will aid Ilott's IndyCar to WEC switch at Jota

Had things gone as Callum Ilott had anticipated over the long IndyCar off-season – a full eight grand prix weekends have been held since he navigated September’s Laguna Seca season finale crashfest to finish an equal-best fifth – then he’d be preparing for a third full-season in top-flight US open-wheel racing. But as the Cambridge native put it on the Autosport International show’s main stage last month, “circumstances changed as they sometimes do in life”.

The 25-year-old duly found himself facing the exit door at Juncos Hollinger Racing, the team he’d joined for the final three races of a 2021 season that overlapped with his final year on Ferrari’s books. Fortunately for Ilott, while the door to a Formula 1 race seat had remained firmly closed, he’d not spent 2021 entirely kicking his heels as Alfa Romeo’s underused reserve.

A season in the Pro class of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup for Iron Lynx, and a cameo outing for its World Endurance Championship squad that netted a GTE Am class podium on his Le Mans 24 Hours debut, had served as a useful barometer of what the 2020 Formula 2 runner-up could do in a sportscar. As a result, privateer Porsche team Jota knows the sort of talent it’s snapped up to join its two-car assault on the 2024 WEC Hypercar class.

“The Ferrari GT guys went into Hypercar and have done obviously a strong job, and I had a direct comparison to them,” explains Ilott backstage at ASI, shortly after his main stage appearance before a healthy crowd, drawn in by the presence of the Hertz-liveried 963. “Not only does it help me as an endurance driver, because I’ve done it, but it helped them understand where I was at in a rookie year in a GT car.

“And having driven it, I understand now why a lot of GT drivers are very successful within Hypercar. Because of the weight transfer and the way it goes through the corner, the driving style is similar.”

After a pause enforced by EuroNASCAR’s deafening arrival at the main stand, Ilott continues: “Obviously I wasn’t too bad in 2021 and I have a good history of being quite quick. There’s a couple of things that you need to learn, but it’s definitely closer than I would have imagined.”

Racing GT cars for Ferrari in 2021 gave Ilott a grounding in what to expect when he returns to sportscars this year

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Ilott will join Andretti Formula E driver Norman Nato and team regular Will Stevens aboard Jota’s #12 963 LMDh, with Jenson Button, Oliver Rasmussen and Phil Hanson steering the #38. Jota boss Sam Hignett said Ilott’s signing was “the easiest deal I’ve ever done” and is a long-time admirer.

PLUS: Why Button is embarking on his new challenge in the WEC

“Callum was on our list from the very beginning – we assumed he’d go to Ferrari with the factory team,” he revealed on the main stage. “When the opportunity came up to speak to Callum and we had a seat open up in what is now going to be the #12 car, it made complete sense to give him a call and see if we could get a deal done.”

Ilott could have been forgiven for viewing sportscar racing as a poor deal when the driver he’d pushed all the way to the F2 title, fellow Ferrari Driver Academy member Mick Schumacher, landed an F1 berth with Haas. But it’s to his credit that Ilott recognised a return to sportscar racing at some stage was always “a realistic option”, and so gave it his all in 2021 before taking the ticket to IndyCar.

"Now it makes a lot of sense in the way that it’s been done, just in a very odd, roundabout way. I don’t have any regrets in the way it’s gone – it’s worked out really well" Callum Ilott

“Actually, I was kind of correct knowing that I could come back [to sportscars], just not in the way I expected,” he reflects. “I would have had to do another year of GTs to then go into Hypercar anyway [if he’d stayed with Ferrari], so I think now it makes a lot of sense in the way that it’s been done, just in a very odd, roundabout way. I don’t have any regrets in the way it’s gone – it’s worked out really well.”

Ilott is unequivocal that he’s a stronger driver for his experience in IndyCar, racing on its versatile range of tracks and leading the technical direction of a small team, after being Juncos Hollinger’s sole focus until the arrival of a second car for Agustin Canapino last season. Trying to compete with powerhouse efforts from Penske and Ganassi without a team-mate to benchmark against in 2022 was a tough learning experience that means he won’t be fazed by much in the WEC paddock.

“Of course, you do some things right, you do some things wrong, and you’ve got to learn from it and work with it,” he asserts. “I’m definitely in a better shape, a better driver inside and outside the car.”

And having already been through the experience of Le Mans, there’s plenty that will be more familiar to Ilott than your typical IndyCar-to-WEC convert. That fact gives him assurance that “it’s definitely an easier transition” than the other way round.

Ilott believes his experience of racing on all different kinds of circuits, including ovals, and leading the technical direction of a smaller team has made him a stronger driver

Photo by: Jake Galstad / Motorsport Images

“The only thing that I’m missing realistically is being in the top category in a multi-class race, and overtaking people instead of being the one overtaken,” reasons Ilott. “But driver changes aren’t unknown, three-hour stints aren’t unknown, so 90% of everything that might be new to me is covered, which is good to know.

“The great thing about GTs is I learned how to work with team-mates in that capacity, and what the goal is. The goal isn’t to be the quickest driver in the team – that’s great, everyone wants to be quick – but to make everyone comfortable and make the slowest person the quickest. That goes the same to adapting the [driving] position to fit everyone, so that everyone is comfortable.”

He doesn’t anticipate any difficulties working with Stevens and Nato, with the older Brit proving “such a help” to the team newcomers in sharing the 963’s nuances. Stevens, as the only driver from 2023 who remains on Jota’s books this year, may be a secret weapon for his car crew, reckons Ilott, although the former grand prix driver will be expected to be a similarly open book for Button and co on the other side of the garage.

“Knowing what’s right and what’s wrong in certain situations can be kind of lifesaving for the car,” Ilott says. “And they are very complex; it’s F1-level complexity. It’s important to understand that, and to have the ability and knowledge to make all the changes necessary between drivers to get the best out of the car. The other part of the team is going to need information [from Stevens]. Having him on our side is a benefit, but he’s going to be as much help to them as he is to us.”

Ilott is unwilling to completely shut the door on IndyCar, in his view the most competitive and close-fought championship he’s contested, “which is great and painful at the same time”. But with the likes of Scott Dixon and Will Power still firing into their forties, he knows time is on his side should he wish to return.

“You do know that there would be space when they slow down a bit,” he reckons. But if IndyCar does turn out to be a closed chapter, Ilott is satisfied that, even if the results don’t necessarily show it, he left nothing on the table in that theatre.

“If you look at the overall results, no,” he replies when asked whether he established himself in IndyCar. “But when you understand how it’s been and what you had to do in that situation, yes, 100%. People overlook that a lot of the time, so it depends who I’m speaking to [as to whether they agree].”

Ilott isn't closing the door on a return to IndyCar, but anticipates enjoying his spell in the WEC

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

Riding the crest of the Hypercar wave is no bad place to be in the meantime, with the influx of manufacturers into the WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship generating a buzz around endurance racing that many promoters would pay through the nose to capture. Ilott is under no illusion that he’s landed a plum seat, and recognises that his timing couldn’t be better as he joins a series “on the up”.

“It’s nice to be a part of that,” he grins. “I want to enjoy what I want to do, and I think that I’m definitely going to enjoy this. There’s so many drivers who have had such great careers and are going to have long careers. I’m excited to see what that is.

“And like a couple of people have said, it’s great to see me land on my feet – and I think not only on my feet, but kind of running. Jota are a small team in comparison [to the factories], but a very focused and direct team. I think it’s going to be brilliant.”

What will Ilott be able to achieve in 2024 with Jota?

Photo by: Eric Le Galliot

Jota’s first year in Hypercar

Although fourth place in Bahrain constituted the best result of its nascent Hypercar programme in the 2023 World Endurance Championship, Jota Sport boss Sam Hignett professed himself happy when facing the public at Autosport International last month.

The team’s single Porsche 963 had been delivered only 10 days before the Spa 6 Hours, and Hignett says he’s “never seen a bunch of humans work so hard” as his crew did to get the first racing example of a customer LMDh car ready, which elicited a telling comment from his Hypercar team principal Dieter Gass. “As the car rolled out of the pitlane for FP1, Dieter said, ‘I think that’s the most emotional thing I’ve ever experienced in motorsport’,” Hignett relates.

Sixth on its debut exceeded expectations, and the eight laps it led at Le Mans until Yifei Ye crashed at the Porsche Curves matched the works Porsche Penske Motorsport team’s tally across its three cars. Hignett believes victory on the team’s 24-hour bow with Porsche “was never on the cards”, but reckons a podium finish “was definitely a reality”.

"We improved at a greater rate than the factories because we were starting from a very different point, so by the time we got to Bahrain we could split the Ferraris" Sam Hignett

A steering wheel glitch compromised Monza, but Jota split the works Porsches at Fuji and was the top-finishing 963 in Bahrain.

“The lovely thing is as the season went on, we improved at a greater rate than the factories because we were starting from a very different point, so by the time we got to Bahrain we could split the Ferraris,” says Hignett. “It’s nice to have ended the season as the fastest Porsche.”

Now that the team has scaled up to two-full season entries, Hignett is happy to reveal that talks were held with Sebastian Vettel, although the “timing wasn’t right on that deal”. But with two strong line-ups, its entire focus now on Hypercar, and a proliferation of strong commercial partners, Jota is well-placed to compete in 2024: “It’s back to the old days of Group C, where there’s no reason why a privateer couldn’t win the LMDh battle.”

Hignett was encouraged by year one for Jota in Hypercar and is now aspiring to build on it with a two-car roster

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images