Yifei Ye is the first confirmed driver at Hertz Team JOTA, for their upcoming 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign.
The Chinese driver has impressed a lot of people in sportscar racing, with the results that he has achieved so far. He won both the Asian Le Mans Series and European Le Mans Series in 2021, and continued to race on in the ELMS in 2022 for COOL Racing, where he grabbed three podium finishes, and fifth in the final standings.
JOTA is definitely not a new name in the FIA WEC, but the deal with Hertz as titlesponsor for 2023 and further is new, supporting them in running a Porsche 963 Hypercar, where they are going to compete against all the other big car manufacturers – including Porsche Penske Motorsport, which will run the exact same equipment.
The team has won the ELMS and FIA WEC titles several times, and finished the 2022 season off by winning the LMP2 title in Bahrain – a season which included a victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans as well.
One of the other drivers for 2022, Antonio Felix da Costa, was confirmed as a new Porsche works driver in Formula E earlier in the year, but with a chance to compete in other stuff as well, so that would certainly be a possibility to continue at JOTA in the new Hypercar, which is build to the LMDh regulations.
The remaining two drivers next to Yifei Ye will be announced in due course.