Photo: MPS Agency
Glickenhaus could disappear from the FIA World Endurance Championship grid after the end of this season if the team fails to secure funding to upgrade its Le Mans Hypercar.
Team owner Jim Glickenhaus told Sportscar365 that his eponymous team would need “substantial budget” to develop, upgrade and test its LMH car for next year, adding that he has ‘no desire to be cannon fodder’ in the WEC’s growing Hypercar class.
The Glickenhaus 007 Pipo, which debuted at the 8 Hours of Portimao in 2021, is one of the category’s oldest cars.
It was introduced in the same year as the Toyota GR010 Hybrid, but in contrast to Glickenhaus the Japanese manufacturer introduced updates for both the 2022 and 2023 seasons.
With few upgrades and a lack of testing, particularly heading into the current season, Glickenhaus has struggled against an influx of factory entries from the likes of Ferrari, Porsche and Cadillac.
Glickenhaus said the team would require additional funding for the development of its car to ensure the continuation of its program into next year.
“A lot of that’s going to depend on exactly what our program would be with a sponsor,” he said.
“This car is three years old. To be competitive, it would need a serious Evo [upgrade]. It would need a lot of testing. It would need a substantial budget.
“We feel that if we had that, we could be very competitive. It’s amazing that our three-year-old car, up against the best and the brightest, newest cars is still relatively in the ballpark.
“The idea that at Le Mans we beat Porsche is incredible. To beat Peugeot is also incredible and we certainly weren’t a joke.”
While ideally wanting to continue in the world championship next year, Glickenhaus admitted he could settle for ending the program altogether if additional sponsorship is not found.
“It’s really if we get sponsors that would enable us to develop the car and keep going, that would be exciting and valuable,” he said. “And if we don’t, it’s not a problem.
“We have no desire to come up and be cannon fodder. Here’s the thing: racing does sell cars, but the economics of WEC versus the size of our company and the number of cars that we would be capable of producing makes absolutely no sense.
“It makes sense for the big manufacturers who are selling millions of cars a year. In the case of Ferrari, 13,000-20,000 cars a year.
“Or Lamborghini, but I don’t think that for a small private team, it makes any economic sense.”
No Decision Yet on Fuji, Bahrain Presence
Glickenhaus has taken a similar position to the overseas races at Fuji and Bahrain that will close out this year’s WEC campaign.
Its participation will need to be confirmed in the coming days because the WEC’s sea-freight containers in which teams put their cars and equipment in are due to leave shortly after Monza.
A WEC spokesperson told Sportscar365 that freight for the overseas journey will be loaded on July 17-18, with the boat departing for Japan a day later.
“We’re hopeful that we’re going to be able to decide that in a positive way,” said Glickenhaus. “We should know, I would say, within two weeks and we’ll see where it goes.
“The WEC is a lot different than when we signed on. When we signed on, we were told that if we built a car within the rules, we could do a 3:30 in Le Mans, if that’s what we needed to be.
“There were a lot of rule changes and a lot of things that were swapped around to try to make some kind of convergence.
“Also, I think the spirit of it changed a little bit. When we signed on, we believed that a private team with a budget that was estimated to be a lot more reasonable than an LMP1 team could have a chance.
“But now we’re up against gigantic corporations [with] unlimited spending. It’s a much different situation.”
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