Glickenhaus Le Mans 24 Hours result "like a dream"

Glickenhaus Racing’s sixth and seventh-place finishes in last weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours were “like a dream” for the small manufacturer, according to its technical boss.

Luca Ciancetti, who leads the Glickenhaus motorsport programmes at Podium Advanced Technologies, made the claim despite the team falling down the Hypercar order from its podium finish behind the two Toyotas last year and fourth place in 2021.

He insisted the team could have "no complaints" after scoring a top-six result with the best of its Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 Le Mans Hypercars in the face of increased opposition from Ferrari, Porsche, Peugeot and Cadillac at the blue riband World Endurance Championship round.

"For a small niche manufacturer like Glickenhaus being in among all these big-name car makers is like a dream," Ciancetti told Motorsport.com.

"We are absolutely happy about our results this time."

The best of the Glickenhaus 007s, the full-season entry driven by Romain Dumas, Olivier Pla and Ryan Briscoe, moved into the top six late in the penultimate hour after the #5 Porsche 963 LMDhs hit driveshaft problems.

Both 007s had been running in the top six on Sunday morning before Pla in #708 and Franck Mailleux in #709 car he shared with Esteban Gutierrez and Nathanael Berthon both spun into the barriers after taking too much exit kerb at the Indianapolis left-hander.

"The drivers made some mistakes, but shit happens in motor racing," said Ciancetti.

#708 Glickenhaus Racing Glickenhaus 007 of Romain Dumas, Olivier Pla, Ryan Briscoe

Photo by: Marc Fleury

"Everyone makes mistakes: we didn't tighten a front wheel properly on #709 during the night.

"Even if you kind of clean up our race and factor out the crashes and the mistakes, I don't think we would have been any higher than fifth or maybe fourth.

"The time we lost didn't make a lot of difference in terms of our overall result in the end."