Glickenhaus on track in Italy

The new Glickenhaus Le Mans Hypercar is up and running – but not in time to be on the grid for the opening round of the World Endurance Championship opener at the Algarve Circuit next month. The US manufacturer has opted to miss the race to focus on testing and development.

The Glickenhaus-pipo 007LMH hit the track at Vallelunga last week, completing more than 100 laps with Romain Dumas and Franck Mailleux driving. That left little more than a month for development and then homologation of the car prior to the Portuguese event scheduled for 4 April.

Marque boss Jim Glickenhaus explained that his team had “learned a lot” over the course of the two-day test. The focus on the opening day on Thursday was calibrating the car’s electronics, but on Friday the solo car, he said, “just kept lapping, lapping and lapping”.

“We only did 20 laps on Thursday, but we completed around about 100 on Friday,” he revealed. “We were able to test all those things you need to, like the clutch and the launch control, and we did some good set-up work.”

The first test of the 007 had to be pushed back from early February as a result of delivery delays. That forced Glickenhaus Racing to skip the Algarve event, which it had planned to contest with both its entries. “It is very important that we get the car right so that when we start racing it’s good, because once we homologate it’s locked for five years,” said Glickenhaus. “I am playing the long game here.”

Glickenhaus will test at Monza this month and then undertake a 30-hour endurance simulation at Motorland Aragon in April, after which the car will be homologated in time to take part in round two of the WEC at Spa on 1 May.