Glickenhaus drivers named as Sebring WEC entry unveiled

Two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Romain Dumas was one of two new names listed against the #708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH along with Ryan Briscoe on the entry list for the Sebring 1000 Miles on March 18.

Olivier Pla was the first nominated driver for the car on the release of the WEC entry list in January, which confirmed a single full-season entry for the boutique American manufacturer in 2022.

The #708 Glickenhaus is one of four cars entered in the top Hypercar class for the Sebring round along with two Toyota TS050 Hybrids and Alpine's solo A480-Gibson, with Peugeot having already announced its absence.

With no other additional entries or omissions from the full-season roster, 37 cars will line up on the grid at Sebring.

The Signatech Alpine squad has yet to name any drivers in addition to Andre Negrao for its Oreca-built A480 grandfathered LMP1 prototype.

A total of 15 LMP2 cars will be on the grid for Sebring, along with five GTE Pro cars and 13 in the GTE Am division.

The publication of the entry list was preceded by a series of team announcements on Monday, including rally legend Sebastien Ogier's deal to race for the Signatech-run Richard Mille Racing LMP2 team and confirmation of WRT's full-season line-ups.

Paul di Resta was also confirmed to replace Alex Lynn at United Autosports for the season opener, with Lynn focussing on his IMSA Sebring 12 Hours duties for the Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac squad.

Only one seat in the 15-car LMP2 field, at G-Drive Racing, remains unallocated for Sebring, with a partner for the already-announced Rene Binder and James Allen still yet to be named.

The line-ups for all five GTE Pro cars are fixed, but of the 13 GTE Am cars just six have a full complement of drivers listed against them.

These include the #71 Spirit of Racing Ferrari 488 GTE, with ex-LMP2 driver Gabriel Aubry confirmed to fill the final spot alongside Pierre Ragues and gentleman racer Franck Dezoteux.

Dumas, Pla set for full WEC season for Glickenhaus

Luca Ciancetti, who manages the Glickenhaus WEC programme from Podium Advanced Technologies in Italy, told Motorsport.com that Dumas and Pla "will probably do the full season" in the team's #708 entry.

But he stressed that the final driver line-up will not be determined until Glickenhaus finds out whether its second car has been accepted for the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

"Nothing is 100 percent decided and won't be until we see the Le Mans entry list," said Ciancetti. "All we can say for sure is that we have kept six of our drivers from last year, the ones who drove at Le Mans [Dumas, Briscoe, Pla, Pipo Derani, Richard Westbrook and Franck Mailleux]."

 

Ciancetti added that it is likely that Action Express Cadillac IMSA regular Derani will race the #708 alongside Dumas and Pla for the Spa WEC round on May 7.

Should the Glickenhaus team's additional entry be accepted for Le Mans, then it is planned that Briscoe, Westbrook and Mailleux will race it.

That means the Le Mans line-ups at Glickenhaus will be different to last year; Dumas raced with Westbrook and Briscoe in the #709 machine, while Pla and Derani shared the #708 car with Mailleux.

Ciancetti ruled out either Westbrook or Mailleux driving at Spa because the duo will be contesting the Nurburgring 24 Hours qualifying races with the Glickenhaus 004C GT car on that weekend.