Jim Glickenhaus reckons his pair of Le Mans Hypercars are in very good shape ahead of the Six Hours of Monza after the team cracked the top three for the first time during Saturday’s second free practice session.
The American team has expanded to a two-car operation at the third round of the FIA World Endurance Championship following its debut with a single car at the previous round in Portimao.
During its WEC debut last month, the team struggled but it seems to be heading for better fortunes at Monza, especially as the gaps in the Hypercar class appear to be tightening.
The #708 007 LMH set the third-fastest time in the Saturday morning session, as Frenchman Olivier Pla was just one-hundreth of a second behind Alpine and ahead of the #8 Toyota.
Team owner Jim Glickenhaus told MotorsportWeek.com that he had hoped the team would do better at Monza with a low downforce aero kit and was optimistic for the team’s chances for the remainder of the weekend.
“The car is in our low downforce mode, we always knew that So we always hope to do better at Monza and really have a good shot at Le Mans,” Glickenhaus said. “And I think the times are showing that.”
“In sector one where you often can get passed, no one passed us there, we had a good sector one. So I think we have a good balance.”
“Our goal, certainly in free practice wasn’t to set the fastest lap it was to dial in the car and to use it. And we did. And I think we’re in very good shape.”
According to Glickenhaus, the expansion to a two car operation at Monza is very beneficial to the team, as it is able to gather far more data compared to Portimao, where it had to make do with a single car.
“It makes a huge difference,” he said. “Because we can send one car out with one setup, the other with a different [setup], see which one works and then move that data over.”
“I think the car is good. You know, it’s a very reliable car, we’ve had no issues. Little niggles, but we got rid of them. And the drivers are all good. I think we could have a very good race here. Our goal is to test a lot of different configurations here, and to move forward to Le Mans in the most successful way we can.”
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