Oliver Jarvis: JOTA remind me of Joest

Oliver Jarvis says the professional approach of his Jackie Chan DC Racing outfit bears a strong resemblance to his former employers, Audi Sport Team Joest.

Sharing the No.38 ORECA 07-Gibson with Ho-Pin Tung and Thomas Laurent, Jarvis finished second outright at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and took a commanding victory in LMP2.

For the team run by JOTA Sport it was a fifth win in the last six FIA World Endurance Championship races dating back to Fuji last year while operating under the G-Drive banner.  It was also its second at Le Mans after winning the 24 Hours with Harry Tincknell, Oliver Turvey and Simon Dolan in 2014.

Speaking ahead of the 6 Hours of Nürburgring, Jarvis praised Jackie Chan DC Racing for getting both cars to the finish on the overall podium at Le Mans and drew parallels with the Joest Audi operation which won Le Mans 13 times between 2000 and 2014.

“They’re an absolutely fantastic team and the biggest compliment I can pay them is that they remind me exactly of the Joest guys,” he said. 

“It’s a very close-knit team, but the passion and the will to win is phenomenal. The work the guys put in through the Le Mans weekend and the preparation of the car in the weeks prior to it was amazing to see. Probably I saw it more being with a small team this year than I had realised in the past with Audi.

“The fact that we got two cars to the podium with almost zero issues I don’t think is a coincidence, it’s a credit to the team investigating every detail and doing everything possible to make sure they put us in that position.

“Of course, luck always plays a part, but there’s a reason certain teams or certain manufacturers are always on the receiving end of that luck.”

Jarvis capitalised on the demise of the race-leading Toyota to take the final step on the podium at Le Mans last year, but unsurprisingly preferred his experience this time around.

“You never take a Le Mans podium for granted, but I almost felt like last year we didn’t deserve it,” he said. “It was very surreal – we weren’t even sure when the race finished whether we were on the podium or not and I was more gutted for the Toyota guys than I was happy for ourselves, whereas this year was the complete contrast. We set out to achieve a dream and that’s exactly what we did.”

With 50 points banked for the victory at Le Mans, Jarvis now enjoys a commanding 38-point lead in the championship heading to Germany, but is still intent on winning as many races as possible over the remainder of the season.

“When you’re leading the championship, you’ve got everything to lose, but I think we’ve just got to continue doing everything that we’ve been doing so far,” he said.

“We still want to go out and win races, if we ended up winning the championship but finishing fourth for the rest of the year it would be a disappointing end to what has been an incredible start. At the end of the year it would be nice not only to win it, but to win it in the right way and for people to be able to say we deserved it.”