The Balance of Performance graph for Cadillac tells a clear story: Within just four World Endurance Championship races, the V-Series.R’s power-to-weight ratio deteriorated by 0.171 kg/kW. Not even Ferrari experienced such a drastic shift this season. It was evidence that Cadillac made big steps throughout 2025.
This leap was a consequence of both an electronics update over the winter and the high-profile switch to Jota Sport.
Jota took over the operation of the American LMDh challenger from Chip Ganassi Racing before the 2025 season, and the performance gain was visible from the very first race.
Traditionally, the Cadillac was one of the most favourably-rated cars in the WEC. Accordingly, the V8-powered LMDh entered the season opener in Qatar with the second-best rating in the critical sub-250kph range with 2.048 kg/kW, trailing only the Peugeot 9X8.
That led to an immediate impact by the Jota entries: At Qatar, the V-Series.R was the second-strongest force behind Ferrari and even took the lead during the first Safety Car through a strategic masterstroke.
That was until both cars eliminated themselves from contention through the infamous intra-team collision at the following restart. In hindsight, this blunder cost the #12 Cadillac at least third in the drivers’ championship and Cadillac a top three spot in the manufacturers’ standings.
Perhaps the strong start was even counterproductive. «We were still at the very beginning of our learning curve, despite the testing we had completed,» Jota team principal Dieter Gass told Motorsport.com in Bahrain.
«In motorsport, it’s all about blind trust within the team, ensuring one hand knows exactly what the other is doing. In Qatar, we were still relatively far from that point.»
This specifically refers to the integration of Cadillac’s performance engineers into the existing Jota structure. The collision was likely a symptom of communication procedures that hadn’t been fully optimised yet.
Imola: The great weakness
With a slightly improved power-to-weight ratio of 2.041 kg/kW, the team headed to Imola—traditionally Cadillac’s weakest track.
That didn’t change in the second race of the Jota-Cadillac alliance. Even Jota couldn’t solve the car’s core issues, particularly its struggle over the high kerbs.
A crash in practice for the #12 didn’t help either, and the Jota cars experienced their weakest race of the season, unable to play a role in the strategic chess match at the front.
For Spa-Francorchamps, the V-Series.R received a slightly weaker BoP for the first time, although it remained favorably rated relative to other Hypercars.
It was therefore surprising that the Jota cars lagged slightly behind Ferrari and Alpine on pure pace, but still secured a solid fifth and sixth as the third-best force.
The special BoP for Le Mans remained the second-best below 250kph at 2.006 kg/kW, although the gap to other Hypercars (including Ferrari and Toyota) was much smaller than at other venues.