How Jackie Chan DC Racing and Jota Sport stunned at Le Mans

It was deemed wise to remedy the issue at a routine stop, even if the extra 30-40sec effectively sacrificed any hope of outright victory. 

“We were aware that Porsche was going to get ahead during that next hour, but it was quite fun listening to everybody trying to work out when they were going to pass us,” says Hignett. “The big boss of Toyota came up to me after the race and said one of the greatest moments was seeing the Porsche having to really hustle to try to catch us, because Porsche didn’t know about our longer scheduled pitstop, so they really had to get on with it. We were the only people who knew about the longer stop at that stage. It was a great fantasy for a moment, but the reality was otherwise.”

Earlier that morning, Hignett had experienced a “feeling of disbelief” when Porsche’s number one car – which had a 13-lap lead – ground to a halt with less than four hours remaining. With the number two 919 Hybrid still recovering from serious delays suffered earlier in the race and Toyota’s three LMP1 cars already out of contention, the Jackie Chan DC Racing car was best placed to take over the lead.

“I was sitting with our engineers watching the screens at the time and when we saw the Porsche slowing, it didn’t really dawn on us what that meant,” he says. “But when André Lotterer got out of the 919 Hybrid, I remember just looking at the engineers. We didn’t need to say anything. It was very funny – nobody talked about it, but we all knew. It was a good moment.

“We had a chat over the radio involving all the team and said to the guys ‘Where we are in the race is amazing, but our focus has to remain on winning LMP2’. With leading the race, we became the most popular team in the pitlane, which is something that we have never experienced before.”

As a long-time LMP2 entrant, JOTA Sport is used to operating away from the fierce glare of publicity that’s endured by the big factory LMP1 teams. Suddenly, though, Jackie Chan DC Racing was the toast of the pitlane, and that brought with it unfamiliar pressure.

“I now understand the difficulties that Porsche, Toyota and those guys have with the press,” says Hignett. “We were swamped with people. There was an extraordinary amount of pressure on the crew when they had TV crews around them all of a sudden. 

“Full credit to the mechanics and the engineers: they took it in their stride, even though they were shattered by that point of the race. We hadn’t had the best run-in to the race, so the guys had had to work through the night on Friday as well, so the last time some of the crew had seen their beds was Thursday. It was really tough.”

Knowing about the impending bodywork change during the next pitstop released some of that pressure on Jota Sport, and when the Porsche 919 Hybrid swept past the Oreca-Gibson and into the lead with one hour to go, an air of relative normality returned and the team knuckled down to bring home the LMP2 spoils – and a remarkable second place overall. 

It wasn’t as if the number 38 car was enjoying a completely trouble-free run, either. The three drivers had been nursing a dragging clutch since the eighth hour. Allied to this, they had lost time with a starting issue (traced to a faulty aircon unit draining the battery) in the early stages of the race and a further delay had occurred when Laurent went off at Indianapolis Corner on Saturday, damaging the Oreca’s front bodywork.

Besides all that, this was a race where many had predicted that the second-tier prototypes would struggle. This was the first Le Mans 24 Hours for the latest breed of LMP2s, all powered by the 4.2-litre V8 Gibson engine. None of the competitors in the 25-strong class at Le Mans had used their new cars in anger for longer than six hours.

“Prior to the race, everybody was having a bet on how few LMP2s would finish,” says Hignett. “Some expected less than half of them cars to make it. It wasn’t the case at all, and most of those that didn’t make it were taken out in accidents. This is a new generation of LMP2 cars and for us to dominate Le Mans like that is a great testament to our team’s technical staff and everything they’ve done.”

Jota was confident that the pace of its two cars would stand it in good stead during the race, but for the number 38 entry to spend such little time in the pits – and no time at all having more significant repairs in the garage – was a brilliant performance that for Hignett feels almost as good as a victory.

“LMP2 is like a mid-grid Formula 1 championship in terms of driver ability, so there is very little in it, but if we can achieve the minimum pitstop time and have no cars visit the garage during the race – that’s really something for us to be proud of,” he says.

“We were confident we would be on the pace. There were three or four other cars on the grid that were as good as us on pace sometimes, but as an average – and Le Mans is all about averages - across our three drivers, we were confident that we had most of our LMP2 rivals covered off. It really was just a question of reliability and then, as always at Le Mans, you need a huge dose of luck with accidents and the other things that can befall you.”

Luck may have played its part, but it would be uncharitable to say that was the only factor at play. Everyone involved with Jackie Chan DC Racing hit their marks during the race.

Jota has a history of performing strongly at Le Mans, having finished fifth overall in 2014, but last Sunday’s achievement is likely to remain stamped in the record books for some time. It marked the first time a car from the second-tier LMP2 class has led the famous race, and the first time a car shod with Dunlop tyres had led for 20 years. Tung became the first Chinese competitor to stand on the Le Mans podium, and Jackie Chan DC Racing was the first Chinese entrant to do likewise. 

The second entry, driven by team co-founder David Cheng, Tristan Gommendy and Alex Brundle, finished fourth on the road and third in the LMP2 category. However, the car in second place, the number 13 Rebellion entry, was subsequently disqualified for a technical infringement, leaving the Jackie Chan DC Racing cars second and third overall, and first and second in LMP2.

It’s a remarkable achievement for the team co-founded by Hollywood action hero Chan, not least because it only joined forces with Jota Sport at the start of this season.

For Hignett and Jota Sport, there has been no time to bask in the Le Mans result. The Le Mans trophies have been airfreighted to China for a two-week promotional tour also involving some of the drivers. The day after Le Mans, his engineering team sent him an email requesting permission to do some additional testing to bolster its LMP2 push in the World Endurance Championship.