Team founder Jim Glickenhaus believes that changes to the system of Balance of Performance employed in the Hypercar class of the WEC, together with improvements to the Pipo-engined 007 LMH and within the Glickenhaus team, mean his squad will be able to take the fight to Toyota in the French enduro next weekend.
“Why shouldn’t we going into the race believing we can win?” Glickenhaus told Autosport.
“That’s why you go racing, and we won’t go down easily.
“If you were a betting man, you’d look at Glickenhaus and Toyota and say why should someone like us who builds as many road cars in two years as they do in five minutes have a chance.
“But what we have now is a fair Balance of Performance; that’s all I ever asked for so that we have a chance.”
He added that the results of the Le Mans test day on Sunday, when Romain Dumas set second fastest time two tenths behind the best of the Toyota GR010 HYBRIDs, provided evidence that the BoP is now working.
Glickenhaus pointed to the change in the deployment speed for the Toyota’s front-axle hybrid system as the key change from Le Mans last year.
The speed has gone up from 120km/h in the dry and 150km/h in the wet to a figure that now stands at 190km/h in all the conditions for the Toyota after the hybrid deployment was moved from the technical regulations to the BoP.
“I didn’t say I wanted 190km/h, I just said that having a four-wheel-drive cars shouldn’t come with a massive advantage,” he explained.
“I have great respect for what the Automobile Club de l'Ouest and the FIA [who jointly set the rules for the WEC] have done.
“They’ve looked at all the data and come up with what I believe is a fair BoP.”
Glickenhaus went on to say that his team’s LMH, developed in Italy by Podium Advanced Technologies, is also a more raceable car than at the delayed 2021 running of the 24 Hours last August.
“The guys at Podium have done an amazing job optimising our car,” he explained.
He explained that the ergonomics of the cockpit of the Glickenhaus have been one area of improvement since 2021.
Glickenhaus and Luca Ciancetti, who heads up the 007 LMH programme at Podium, also pointed to improvements within the team structure, which incorporates personnel from the multiple Le Mans-winning Joest Racing squad.
“Last year our pitwork wasn’t up to standard, so we have put an enormous amount of effort into that,” said Glickenhaus.
Ciancetti explained that the team would be tactically stronger this year, too.
“I would say we are better prepared from a strategy point of view,” he said.
Practice for the 90th running of the Le Mans 24 Hours, round three of this year’s WEC begins on Wednesday afternoon, with first qualifying in the evening.
