Pla Praises “Amazing Job” from Glickenhaus to Take First Pole

Olivier Pla praised the “amazing job” carried out by the Glickenhaus Racing and its partners after claiming the American LMH constructor’s first FIA World Endurance Championship pole position.

The Frenchman put the No. 708 Glickenhaus 007 Pipo that he shares with Romain Dumas and Pipo Derani on the front row of the grid for the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa with a time of 2:02.771 set during Friday’s single-driver qualifying session.

Pla later praised the background work of the team led by Jim Glickenhaus, whose car was designed and run by Podium Advanced Technologies with a Pipo Moteurs engine and logistical support from Joest Racing.

Spa marks the fifth WEC race for Glickenhaus in the Hypercar class, with its previous-best qualifying result being Pla’s second place for the 1000 Miles of Sebring.

“I am really happy for Jim and for the team,” he said. “They have put a lot of effort for us to be there, fighting against Toyota.

“I have to give a lot of credit to Jim, Podium, Pipo and Joest. They did an amazing job since the beginning, on a very low budget. It is good to be there on pole.

“We have to take it when we can take it, and it’s what we did.”

Pla suggested that Glickenhaus Racing is under no illusions about how challenging it will be to replicate its qualifying form in Saturday’s race, but nonetheless expressed confidence in the 007 LMH’s pace over a full stint.

Glickenhaus conducted a low fuel, new tires qualifying simulation with Pla during Free Practice 2 but otherwise focused on longer running with its non-hybrid prototype.

“I think our pace is not too bad,” Pla said. “I don’t really look at what Toyota has done, but we were quite happy with our pace over a long stint.

“We will see tomorrow: for sure it is going to be a very close competition. The Alpine will be there also, so it’s going to be interesting.

“We knew that it was going to be close between all the cars. It was close between us and Toyota at Sebring and Alpine was in a different league.

“Obviously they have less horsepower and are in the middle of us. We know that Sebring wasn’t the best track for our car and that this track suits our car a little bit more.

Pla added that his faster qualifying lap got off to a rocky start.

“I made a mistake at Turn 1 on the first flyer,” he said. “I braked a little late and missed the apex.

“I had a moment on exit. But the rest of the lap was quite good. It was enough for pole.”

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s WEC technical director Pascal Vasselon suggested that the reigning world champion squad needs to “find ways” to overcome Glickenhaus and Alpine during the race.

The Toyota GR010 Hybrids qualified third and fourth, with the higher-placed No. 7 car coming through 0.316 seconds off the pole-sitting time ahead of the No. 8.

“We need to be more consistent, we have no choice,” Vasselon told Sportscar365.

“We have a pace disadvantage, which we were expecting. Now we have to find ways to recover during the race.

“The only way will be to be more consistent on tires with better management, hopefully better management of traffic and pit stops. We need to recover a pace difference.”

While Pla’s best time in the Glickenhaus came on his first flying lap, both Toyotas took until their second flyers to submit their qualifying attempts.

Vasselon explained that this came down to tire choice, with the GR010 Hybrids understood to have been running on Michelin’s harder ‘medium’ LMH compound.”

“We knew they needed one lap to get the compound up to temperature, so it was kind of expected,” he said.

“We cannot be happy to not be on the front row, but it corresponds remarkably to the simulation work we have done from Sebring.”

Alpine’s qualifying driver Matthieu Vaxiviere felt that the French team’s grandfathered LMP1 car could not go any faster than the 2:02.999 it achieved in qualifying.

“I did a great lap, the tow was really nice,” he said. “We are quite happy with qualifying; let’s see tomorrow in the race.”

Vaxiviere lost some tire grip on his second lap, leaving his opening qualifying attempt as the best one.

“I pushed again on the second one but then in the middle of the lap I started to have some big degradation,” he said. “It’s normal here in Spa. I’m really happy with my quali and we are in our place. We are surprised where Toyota ended up.”

Davey Euwema contributed to this report