Stevens: Cadillac “Should Be in Better Place” at Spa

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Will Stevens is optimistic that Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA “should be in a better place” heading to the third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Spa-Francorchamps after the team came away with just a single point from a challenging Imola weekend.

Stevens, Alex Lynn and Norman Nato finished tenth during the 6 Hours of Imola, picking up the British squad’s sole point while the sister Cadillac V-Series.R, piloted by Earl Bamber, Sebastien Bourdais and Jenson Button, crossed the line in 16th.

The No. 38 car in particular endured an eventful race that featured skirmishes with each of the Peugeot 9X8s, with Bamber eventually receiving a drivethrough penalty for tagging Paul di Resta into a spin at Tosa.

Meanwhile the No. 12 crew had a challenging weekend of its own, with mechanics carrying our significant repairs on the car between Free Practice 3 and qualifying after Lynn went off at Rivazza.

Stevens, for his part, said after the race that the way the Imola weekend played out came as no surprise to the team, but that it was happy about collecting points as it continues to work through its first season as a factory squad.

“There’s no question that we knew this would be a more difficult weekend than Qatar,” Stevens said.

“I think we shouldn’t forget it was still our second race with this car. Obviously very different characteristics, very different track to what we’ve had. So I think it’s good that we’ve now had two extremes of that.

“The reality is now the competition is super tough. If you’re a little bit off the pace, that’s ultimately where you’re going to end up.

“Even on a bad day, let’s call it, we’re still scoring some points which I think at the end of the day in situations like this you’ve always got to try and get the maximum of what we could and I think we did.

“Obviously moving forward that’s not where we want to be and we want to be further up front and hopefully Spa we can make some improvements and make that happen.”

Last year, Spa proved to be the site of JOTA’s breakthrough triumph with its customer Porsche 963, when Stevens and Callum Ilott took victory in the red-flagged and lengthened race.

Stevens looked forward to returning to Spa with optimism, saying he expects the Cadillac package to be “in a better place” at the Ardennes circuit.

“I think even looking to last year with the Cadillac and I think generally higher grip tracks seem to suit us more like we saw in Qatar,” Stevens said.

“Obviously Spa has just been resurfaced not too long ago and I know their track grip is pretty good. So I’m more optimistic for our package going to Spa that we should be in a better place.

“Obviously we look at what Cadillac was doing last year in terms of results coming into this year.

“So I think looking forward to the Spa and the races ahead, I would like to think we can go in confident.

“As a team on those type of tracks, we also know what we want to be doing from a car setup point of view as well.

“So even though [Imola was] disappointing, I think we should still be positive for the remainder of the year that we can still get some strong with us.”