Glickenhaus has named seven drivers for the 2021 FIA World Endurance Championship season.
It’s not yet announced, the exact combination between the two cars.
Ryan Briscoe and Gustavo Menezes were named in each their own car, during the 2021 FIA WEC entry list release last week.
The American team has confirmed Pipo Derani, Romain Dumas, Franck Mailleux, Olivier Pla and Richard Westbrook today.
That is a bit of a Ford Chip Ganassi Racing revival, since Briscoe, Derani, Pla and Westbrook all raced for them, during their FIA WEC and IMSA programmes.
Dumas has prototype experience from Porsche, where he was part of both their LMP2 programme in the ’00s and their LMP1 programme in the 10’s.
You have to think a bit back, to remember Mailleux – at least if you are a Le Mans fan. The Frenchman has raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans six times in both LMP1 and LMP2, where he was part of the Signature/Signatech team, but haven’t been in the race since 2014. He has raced for Glickenhaus during the last few years, in their Nürburgring programme, where they race another homebuilt car.
The team hasn’t named the exact reason for putting down seven names, build it could be for security in case of COVID, plus date clashes between the IMSA and the FIA WEC schedules.
Photo: Glickenhaus
Glickenhaus SCG 007 will have an engine from the Pipo engine factory (yes, that’s its actual name), and will work together with Sauber, in regards to their wind tunnel and other things, while Joest Racing will help out with running the cars. Joest has a huge sportscar experience, where they were running Porsche cars as a private team for many years. They were picked by Audi Sport, once they entered Le Mans, and was their partner until the programme closed in 2016. They went on to do the Mazda Team Joest programme in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, but never really got on top of that programme and slowly retracted their involvement, until they fully handed the running over to Multimatic, in spring 2020.
The SCG 007 car has yet to run its first meters, but the team is busy building the first car. The pulled out of the Sebring opener, before it was replaced by Portimao in Portugal. At the current stage, they expect to be ready for the new season opener of the FIA WEC 2021.
