Jarvis on United Autosports and LMP2’s imminent WEC departure

Credit: United Autosports

In an exclusive with Motorsport Week, United Autosports LMP2 driver Olly Jarvis opened up about racing for the Wakefield-based team and also on his past LMP1 spell with Audi.

Last year, the Brit was crowned champion in the final IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season for the DPi class.

His first, long-awaited 24 hour race win came to form at last year’s 24 Hours of Daytona with the Meyer Shank Racing outfit.

Jarvis has spent over a decade racing in the sportscar discipline, accumulating professional relationships and experiences in a variety of prototype and GT machinery.

Aside from a Daytona 24H drive in January with Era Motorsport, his 2023 motorsport campaign has been fully focused with United Autosports.

Thus far, he competed in the Asian Le Mans Series (AsLMS) at the beginning of the year, and intertwined ongoing World Endurance Championship (WEC) and European Le Mans Series (ELMS) seasons in an Oreca 07-Gibson LMP2.

(L to R) Giedo van der Garde, Josh Pierson and Olly Jarvis after their win in Portimao – Credit: United Autosports

Last year, he returned to the team for a full season, 4 years after first racing with United in 2019, at the 6 Hours of Fuji. This year, the #23 United Autosports crew features Tom Blomqvist joining Josh Pierson and Jarvis, except for when Giedo van der Garde took Blomqvist’s place at Portimao and Monza.

Firstly, Jarvis reflected on being denied a back-to-back 1000 Miles of Sebring LMP2 victory. They were forced to retire from a remarkably rare circumstance, when the on-board camera inside the cockpit came loose and hit the kill switch.

“Unfortunately we had an issue in Sebring, while leading by nearly a lap.

“And with Sebring being points-and-a-half that, it hurt us badly,” said the 39-year-old.

Meanwhile, at Le Mans, he and his teammates came away disappointed.

“We probably didn’t get the result in Le Mans we were hoping for,” he said after finishing sixth in France, missing out on a stronger points haul with double the norm on offer.

“So these two races combined, have really hurt our championship hopes.

“At Le Mans, we had good pace and we were leading the race when a small error cost us dear, and unfortunately that’s motorsport, and that is Le Mans.

“Nowadays, it’s so competitive, you have to have the perfect race and you can’t afford mistakes, when you’ve got a field as strong as there is in LMP2.

“At least two or three cars will go 24 hours with no issues and no mistakes with good pace. That wasn’t the case 10 years ago, but it is now.”

The #23 crew currently sit fourth in the LMP2 Teams’ Championship after just missing on the podium at Monza last month, and sixth at Le Mans before that.

As the most experienced driver in the #23 line-up, Jarvis was keen to share what it was like to work with Pierson, who set the record last year as the youngest ever WEC debutant and race winner.

“He’s very young, but he’s mature. He’s not your typical 17-year-old.

“He’s got a great mentality at the racetrack where he just wants to learn. He’s like a sponge, even to the point of almost liking criticism, and us being hard on him.

“As our relationship continues to grow and improve, he’s getting better and better, but I’m almost even harder on him now than I probably was at the beginning of last year.

“It’s almost easy in the first year for a rookie because there’s no pressure, there’s no expectation, whereas this year I’m looking at Josh and it’s ‘Can he make that step further?’

“Last year, he didn’t know the tracks. So throughout the weekend, you’d see this great progression.

“And what we said this year is, ‘We want you on the pace of where you were last year’ because that then means throughout the weekend, his progression might not be as much — but if you start where you finished off — you’re just going to get better, and he’s done that very well.

“He’s got a very calm mentality about him, he coped with everything we’ve thrown at him. So he’s really impressed not just myself, but the whole team this year.”

Blomqvist, meanwhile, co-drove the Acura ARX-05 DPi with Jarvis last year to the IMSA title, along with the Daytona 24 win at the opening round. The 39-year-old expanded on the continuation of their partnership at United Autosports this year.

“He’s very fast,” said Jarvis on Blomqvist, “but he’s also easygoing and good to work [with].

“I think we all bring something slightly different to the team but in Tom, you’ve got an extremely fast, capable driver, and it just works well. We like the same thing from the car, all three of us have very similar feedback.

“One of the things that’s often overlooked in sportscar racing, is that it’s not just about having three quick guys, it’s having three guys that can work together as a team, progress the car, and drive the team forward.”

So far this year, the #23 crew won at the 6 Hours of Portimao with van der Garde taking place for Blomqvist who had IMSA duties at Long Beach. After their Sebring setback, and the Portimao win, a P2 finish was secured at Spa-Francorchamps.

Jarvis’ relationship with United Autosports’ co-owner Richard Dean stretches as far back as when he was racing in Formula Ford during the early 2000s, and his respect for the team stems from their assured attitude to race weekends, always setting the target to win even if the outcome is not as such.

“I watched what they did,” Jarvis stated while being at Audi’s LMP1 program.

“When Audi pulled out, they (United Autosports) were one of the first teams that you immediately think of.

“I then went on to America (IMSA), but it was fortunate that I made the connection with Richard at the right time with Josh coming on board, and they were looking for a more experienced driver to partner with Josh, like they’ve done with Filipe [Albuquerque] and Phil Hanson.

“That’s something Richard does very well, he finds the right drivers to pair together. It’s very similar to the way Dr. Ullrich (former Head of Audi Motorsport from 1993-2016) used to put his teams together. It wasn’t just about the individual, it was how they would work with the other people on the team.

“It’s a great team, I can’t speak highly enough of them.”

LMP2 is set to be withdrawn as a category from the WEC at the end of this season, to make space for the expanding Hypercar field, and Jarvis shared his disappointment and understanding for its removal.

“The whole LMP2 landscape is changing [and] I think it’s a real shame to lose it from WEC.

“I understand the reasoning, you’ve only got to look at it from a pure numbers point of view that something had to give.

“And in the years where LMP1 was short on numbers, LMP2 really carried the field in many respects.”

The class will continue to race at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where invitations are drawn from other series and the previous year’s winners, boasting over 60 entries, and making exception to the WEC’s 37-car limit which accommodates the garage spaces available at the other international circuits on the calendar.

In IMSA next year, United are set to field two LMP2 Oreca 07s with their drivers to be announced in due course; the line-up of drivers per car differentiates from the WEC which requires three drivers at every race.

Apart from the four drivers per car at Daytona, two drivers run the full-season, and a third driver will join at the Endurance Cup rounds.

The full-season duo combination pairs an amateur-level (bronze) driver with a professional, as Jarvis described.

“I’ve got nothing but great memories of IMSA.

“The tracks are incredible with superb racing, but the one thing it does do for a professional driver is limit your opportunities, because IMSA [for] most of the year, you run a pro driver, and then a bronze driver.

“Whereas [in] WEC you can have two platinum and a silver, and apart from the endurance races, you’re only going to run two drivers for the majority of the year.”

Confirmations regarding the full IMSA line-ups will take place in due course with ongoing campaigns for United to focus on, although Jarvis recognised the value of his IMSA prototype experience as a potential contender for a seat.

Earlier this year, Audi announced a dramatic restructure to their GT3 projects, in that they would withdraw all factory efforts as their focus remains on their 2026 Formula 1 debut.

Jarvis spent several years driving for the German manufacturer from his 2008 DTM debut, through to his years up until their LMP1 departure, whilst also driving in Audi R8 GT1 and GT3 machinery in between these chapters.

He secured 9 WEC podiums and two wins, having faced misfortune when targeting a Le Mans victory.

“Audi is unrecognisable from the Audi that I raced for, from 2008 to the end of 2016.

“I understand the reasoning, I appreciate they’re going to Formula 1; they’ve moved their resources, primarily to that they’re still currently doing Dakar.

“But the one thing Audi always did, or built up over the years [when] I was there, was their customer base, primarily in the GT3 category.

“And it’s really surprising to see them, almost close that — I know they’re going to continue offering customer support in terms of spares — but it’s nothing like the Audi Sport I was part of that so many people have grown up to see — and I think it’s a real shame not to see them represented in sportscars in any way, in terms of factory support.

“As long as I can remember, Audi has been a major part of motorsport outside of Formula 1, so it’s a real shift in philosophy. But as we know, that happens especially with big car manufacturers, change of board members, [and] change of management.”

He then reminisced on his time at Audi, describing the majesty of the LMP1 dedication from Audi, who last year withdrew plans to develop an LMDh for IMSA and WEC.

“The focus that was given to Le Mans by Audi back then was incredible.

“Even though the World Endurance Championship existed, the whole season centred around Le Mans, the WEC was still growing in status, [and] Le Mans made or broke your year.

“It was such a great time for myself, not just in terms of being part of Audi, but also the cars. The cars were phenomenal.

“We were at the height of a manufacturing-development war where every race, there were new updates and people were just developing the cars at a rate I don’t think we’ll see again.

“At the end of every year, the FIA used to try and restrict us by changing the regulations to slow the cars down. And I remember one year, they estimated that they would slow the cars down by three-four seconds, and we arrived and we gained it all back over winter.

“One thing I’ll say is at the time, I almost didn’t appreciate how quick these cars were.

“It was only when Audi pulled out [and] I remember being in Shanghai (2017), and the Porsche LMP1 passing me.

“I looked in my mirrors and there was no one there. And then about three seconds later, this Porsche just blew past me. The acceleration was out of this world.

“It really was because you had the hybrid and the engine power combined to produce nearly 1000 horsepower back then.

“We are at another golden era (Hypercar), and the manufacturers are back and it’s great to see.”

He concluded his nostalgic recollection of LMP1 cars whilst recognising the diverse range of newly homologated Hypercars, with over thrice more manufacturers than LMP1 ever reached.

The only motorsport photograph in his house showed his head in his hands after leading the 12 Hours of Sebring in 2012 and suffering a puncture with 20 minutes remaining.

“That describes motorsport more than standing on the top step of a podium,” he said.

The current middle ground of international prototype racing is developing. IMSA is welcoming an expanded LMP2 field, waving farewell to LMP3 from its WeatherTech series, and the WEC accommodating the increasing Hypercar field.

With such an accomplished racing record, Jarvis valued his commitment to United Autosports and has, above all, enjoyed all of the LMP2 outings so far this year.

Having faced challenges in the WEC which has hampered the chances of an LMP2 title, Jarvis and the crew are looking for a second win this season to boost their chances in the standings at the upcoming 6 Hours of Fuji on 10 September, and the 8 Hours of Bahrain finale on 4 November.

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