Glickenhaus' plan to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans

La Team Cameron Glickenhaus will play his firsts this weekend 24 Hours of Le Mans after making his big debut in the World ChampionshipEndurance à Portimão. Au Portugal, l’écurie américaine n’avait aligné qu’une seule voiture amochée lors d’un triple accrochage. En tête pendant quelques minutes lors des 6 Heures de Monza avant un problème de freins, l’écurie américaine avait montré des progrès confirmés lors de la Journée Test avec le meilleur temps de la numéro 708 du trio Luis Felipe Derani, Franck Mailleux et Olivier Pla. Malgré l’hégémonie de Toyota depuis le début de la saison (trois victoires en autant de courses), Mailleux veut croire en les chances de son écurie. « I have never entered a competition without believing in victory », admits the Frenchman.

Although he is aware of the group's lack of experience, the Breton relies on good team cohesion to achieve the best possible result: “ The program was implemented quite late in some ways. We, the drivers, have not done a part of the championship before all together. It's always necessary in Endurance to create this team spirit and to trust each other because we share the same car, the same objective but at the same time we are often compared in terms of performance. So there is something that must be created and it does not happen overnight. Afterwards, the fact that I already knew Olivier Pla a little, that helped, especially since he knows Pipo very well (Derani, Editor’s note) since a long time. All this helped create this positive state of mind in a very short time and this will allow us to follow the engineers' instructions to the letter without thinking about what the little friend is going to do or decide to do. », explains the driver who returns seven years after his last participation with a Race Performance Oreca 03.

Drive less to increase your chances

If the 708 showed an interesting pace during Sunday's Test Day, Romain Dumas, who drives sister car number 709 with Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, has no illusions about that of the Toyotas: “ The 708 is a little better but neither has the pace of a Toyota. "" We must approach with humility, and with a little luck on our side and a little less on Toyota who seem to have much more comfortable relays than us, by concentrating on what we have to do we can believe in victory », confirms Mailleux. As is often the case during the double round of the clock, the key to victory will be found in reliability. “ We talk about reliability but it's actually full of details that mean we can find ourselves broken down in the pits. In this aspect, it's rather positive because we have a fairly simple car. It remains a 24-hour race where we are flat out and it remains a new car, mechanically and electronically speaking. So there may be small problems and that would be normal in a way », continues the native of Saint-Malo. “ In terms of reliability, it is exemplary. We have no problem, it's pretty good », adds Dumas.

Et si les Glickenhaus n’ont pas roulé au début de la troisième séance d’Essais Libres, cela était prévu dès le matin par le double lauréat de l’épreuve avec Audi puis Porsche : " We are going to put everything into the race and we are going to ride very little today, we are not going to insist too much. We are more in a style 10 years ago with Pescarolo when we bet everything on the race and we no longer did anything. We've already driven quite a bit, is it really worth it? It's all the smarter not to wear out the equipment. » A parts saving strategy which confirms the desire to focus everything on reliability during the race. If Glickenhaus succeeds in her bet, she would sign a doubly historic victory on Sunday.