Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA arrives at Circuit of the Americas next week riding the momentum of its best result of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship season, and with a lineup change in the No. 12 car that should accelerate that momentum rather than interrupt it.
The team finished P3 and P4 in São Paulo, its first podium of the 2026 campaign. That double finish echoes what the squad did at the same venue in 2025, when it became the first U.S. manufacturer to take a 1-2 in the LMP1/Hypercar class at São Paulo. COTA is the follow-up act, and a home race for Cadillac adds pressure the team is plainly welcoming.
The significant news heading into Austin is the driver swap in the No. 12. Alex Lynn is still recovering from surgery and will not race until Barcelona. Stepping in is Ricky Taylor, a Cadillac Racing regular who already knows the V-Series.R well from his IMSA program and crossed paths with this team at Le Mans earlier in 2026. He joins Norman Nato and Will Stevens, and the chemistry between all three should be minimal guesswork. Nato and Stevens both know Taylor from their time competing together in IMSA. Taylor, for his part, arrives fresh off an IMSA win and with no learning curve on the car.
The No. 38 stays put. Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber, and Sebastien Bourdais carry an unchanged lineup into a circuit Aitken has not raced before. He won’t lack for opinions on it once he gets there: COTA’s 3.426-mile, 20-turn layout climbs 133 feet in elevation up to the first corner and strings together slow and fast sequences that eat tires aggressively in heat. Chief Engineer Jeromy Moore noted that the relatively short straights between corners mean tires rarely get a chance to cool, and with track temperatures often running high in early September, managing that thermal window will be as much a tactical call as a setup one.
Weather is the wild card. The team finished P3 and P4 at this race in 2025 through wet and dry conditions, and Bourdais made clear the car had pace in both. That’s useful institutional knowledge at a venue where conditions can swing from triple-digit heat to a downpour inside the same stint.
The weekend schedule begins with two free practice sessions on Friday, September 4. A third practice Saturday morning feeds into qualifying and the 10-minute Hyperpole session. The six-hour race starts at 1 p.m. local time Sunday, September 6.
A podium at COTA would give Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA back-to-back strong results to open the second half of the season, and Taylor’s familiarity with the car removes the typical substitution risk. The bigger question is whether P3 and P4 can become something better at a circuit where Cadillac’s manufacturer points haul is very much in play.
Source: Cadillac. Images courtesy of Cadillac.
