Endurance – WEC – 24 Hours of Le Mans: Glickenhaus bombs his chest during the test day
Posted on August 16, 2021 at 10:27 a.m.
Mathieu WARNIER
Less than a week before the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the crews were able to get their bearings on the legendary Sarthois track this Sunday during the test day. If the Toyotas were expected at the top of the timesheet, Glickenhaus had the fastest lap.
This time, serious things have started! After three rounds of the world championship at Spa-Francorchamps, Portimão and Monza, the crews were able to test themselves on the 13.626km of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans track. Indeed, while the classic Le Mans is scheduled for next weekend, the circuit was open to them for no less than nine hours this Sunday in order to test their machines. It was above all the opportunity to see the new Hypercar cars for the first time on this circuit and the lap times were exactly in the expected window. At the time of the presentation of this new regulation, the FIA and ACO were expecting lap times of around 3’30 » and today’s results fully confirmed this forecast. Indeed, very early in the afternoon session, Kazuki Nakajima placed the number 8 Toyota in the lead with a lap of 3’30 »440 … before seeing Brendon Hartley go below the three-minute mark and half (3’29 »643) at the wheel of number 7.
The 62 competitors in this 89th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans have just completed the 9 hours of testing scheduled for Sunday, as part of Test Day.
Here are the best times ⬇️⬇️⬇️ pic.twitter.com/a0hDGwYf0G
– 24 Hours of Le Mans (@ 24heuresdumans) August 15, 2021
Glickenhaus in constant progress
But it was not the hybrid prototypes of the Japanese manufacturer that had the last word during this test day of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Indeed, it is the Glickenhaus number 708 entrusted to Olivier Pla who won the bet with a lap in 3’29 »115. At the end of this day, the five prototypes entered this year in the Hypercar category are separated by a little less than two seconds on one lap of the circuit. But, as some might worry, the difference in performance with the LMP2 prototypes is not noticeable. Entrusted to Paul-Loup Chatin, the Oreca 07 of the IDEC Sport team set its best time in 3’31 »105, just two seconds behind the best Hypercar. If the reliability of these new cars turns out to be their Achilles heel during the 24 hours of the race, the overall victory could well come in the hands of an LMP2. In the two GTE categories, Porsche set the best time with the 92 in GTE Pro and the 99 of the Proton Competition team in GTE Am.
