Cadillac and the “nightmare situation” of the Lynn-Button crash in Qatar

One would almost begin to believe that there is a curse surrounding Cadillac since its return in WEC, in 2023. The American manufacturer, which has still not won a single victory in the World ChampionshipEndurance, hopes to break this bad luck this season and the association with Hertz Team JOTA is supposed to take the Detroit firm to a new level. Alas, this start to the 2025 campaign shows that there is still a lot to do before getting rid of this black cat! In Qatar, after a very convincing Prologue in terms of pace, the Anglo-American team had high hopes of achieving a good result. A podium or even a victory was in sight in Losail, and after two and a half hours of racing, everything seemed to be falling into place for Cadillac…

Despite a difficult start, with Earl Bamber spinning in the first few minutes of the race, the two V-Series.Rs found themselves in an ideal position when the first Safety Car appeared: by extending their stints thanks to lower fuel consumption than the competition, the two Cadillacs were able to enter the pits during the VSC and come out in the lead ahead of the Ferrari ! Perfect timing and a golden opportunity for the golden mounts to escape in the lead at the restart… except that. In the penultimate corner, a few hundred meters before letting go of the pack, Jenson Button was hit from behind on the n°38 by Alex Lynn on the n°12!

A disaster scenario for Cadillac JOTA

The two Cadillacs were badly damaged following this collision and had to return to the pits when the green flag was waved. While the #12 was able to restart with a simple front bonnet change and finish the race in 8th place, the #38 suffered more damage and had to go into its garage for around ten laps to repair, before finishing in a very sad 16th place. A far cry from the hopes of victory and a podium finish... While Alex Lynn initially blamed Jenson Button, who he accused of performing a "brake check" (a fishtail with sudden braking), it was the driver of the #12 who was given a drive-through penalty for the accident. It didn't matter who was at fault: the two JOTA Cadillacs found themselves out of the running for victory while they were leading the race.

"It's obviously a nightmare situation, said Dieter Gass, Team Principal of Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA, from Sportcars365. I think we need to look at all the data again. Even if it was superficial, it's obvious that they were heating the brakes and the tires and (…) I think Alex was just surprised by Jenson and maybe he was a little bit too close at that point. It's very unfortunate. Ultimately, that's what happened. I can't go back. I want to make sure it doesn't happen again." 

Rebound expected from Imola

After the race, the two drivers incriminated did not appear in the mixed zone to answer questions from journalists. Nevertheless, Alex Lynn shared his feelings via his Cadillac team through a very sober statement. “There are many positives, but to be completely honest, you can’t forget the bittersweet feeling of the day. I have great confidence in JOTA, after driving the car for the ten hours of the race I know what we are capable of doing. Like all great athletes, we have to pick ourselves up and keep going.”

For Sébastien Bourdais, the Anglo-American team must quickly turn the page and focus on Imola (April 20) to wipe away this affront and confirm the potential of the V-Series.R in Hypercar. "When the temperatures cooled down, we seemed to lose the thread with the leading pack, regardless of the incident we had. We live and we learn, philosopher from Le Mans, pilot of the n°38. We We did a full race, both cars finished and, even though it's not the result we wanted, we learned a lot about set-up and race performance. We'll look carefully at all the data and try to learn more about the car so we can use it at Imola."

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