Glickenhaus driver Olivier Pla took me to activity for describing his employer as a garagiste some time again. It appears it’s a pejorative time period for the French. Not so for we Brits. Fairly the opposite: there’s one thing celebratory about it. And that’s why we must always rejoice within the successes of the Glickenhaus Racing squad now that it has informed us that it is bowing out of the World Endurance Championship and its Hypercar class.
I hope that in occasions future we’ll discuss in regards to the American entrant — with a workforce run out of Italy — in the identical breath as different plucky privateers that constructed and ran their very own equipment to tackle the final word problem in endurance racing on the Le Mans 24 Hours. I’m referring to the likes of Alain De Cadenet’s tiny operation primarily based in a mews storage close to the guts of London and Pescarolo Sport, like Glickenhaus groups ok to get on the rostrum with chassis of their very own development. Or no less than considerably reworked variations of another person’s equipment.
That final level is why I feel workforce founder Jim Glickenhaus isn’t fairly appropriate to explain his operation as a privateer. He’s solely half proper.
The phrases privateer and garagiste, and impartial too, are interchangeable for some. However to me the excellence between a privateer and a garagiste lies in who builds the automobile. Kremer was the primary privateer dwelling at Le Mans in 1983 with an off-the-shelf Porsche 956. Glickenhaus matched that feat in 2022 as a garagiste as a result of he constructed his personal Le Mans Hypercar, the 007, and commissioned a bespoke engine for it in addition.
Glickenhaus is a part of a proud sportscar racing custom that features the DeCads that went into battle within the Seventies and early ‘80s after which the automobiles constructed and run by Le Mans legend Henri Pescarolo’s workforce within the 2000s and into the 2010s. The race has by no means simply been about massive producers, typically even up within the rarefied environment of the primary few rows of the grid. I hope it by no means will likely be.
PLUS: The great Le Mans garagistes that challenged factory might
For each garagiste success story at Le Mans there are in all probability three, 4 or much more tales of indifference: automobiles that flattered to deceive, didn’t stay as much as their potential or simply merely weren’t match for goal. However the three-season story of Glickenhaus within the WEC actually was a hit.
Glickenhaus’ Le Mans podium in 2022 is a advantageous achievement whatever the lack of depth within the high class that yr
Photograph by: Nikolaz Godet
Even when the highest class was in a rebuild with new laws when Glickenhaus collected its greatest accolades, its achievements shouldn’t be performed down. Jim and his workforce, everybody at Podium Superior Applied sciences and Joest Racing, can stroll away with their heads held excessive. Nobody ought to scoff at a Le Mans podium nevertheless many automobiles have been on the grid in school. We don’t look down at these garnered by De Cadenet and Pescarolo in opposition to restricted manufacturing unit opposition.
Glickenhaus might need ended up with two Le Mans podiums: it got here shut on debut in 2021 with a model new automobile with simply two races underneath its belt. After which there are its different achievements: three extra bits of silverware collected in common WEC races and a few pole positions.
A kind of got here at Monza final yr, a race Glickenhaus may and arguably ought to have received. On a day that its 007 was within the ascendent, the workforce was getting back from a penalty and seemed to have greater than a combating likelihood of beating the Toyotas when a model new turbocharger smokily gave up the ghost.
Glickenhaus arguably had it simpler than De Cadenet and Pescarolo due to guidelines designed to slash the prices of entry into the best echelons of sportscar racing. However that’s to miss what it achieved this yr at Le Mans. Massive Jim G in all probability sums it up finest when he says, “we beat the likes of Porsche and Peugeot – it actually doesn’t get any higher than that”.
With out Glickenhaus would the category even have gotten off the bottom? A pair of Toyotas in opposition to an {old} ORECA P1 with an Alpine badge nailed to the entrance and a snazzy blue paint job wouldn’t have been a lot of a launchpad for the fantastic period we’re getting into proper now
The workforce might need obtained on the rostrum when the producers weren’t out in drive, however it nonetheless completed within the high six after they have been. And its sixth and seventh-place finishes this yr have been forward of the 2 marques he talked about, which occur to have a mixed complete of twenty-two Le Mans wins.
Peugeot and Porsche have joined the WEC together with Ferrari and Cadillac since Glickenhaus final made it onto the rostrum. BMW, Alpine and Lamborghini will present up subsequent yr, and Aston Martin the yr after, so that you would possibly contend that the sequence doesn’t want the likes of Glickenhaus, the ByKolles-run Vanwall workforce and the Italian Isotta Fraschini model that needs to be a part of the present in 2024. The argument goes that in the event you’ve obtained the massive weapons, then you definitely don’t want anybody else.
However I reckon it does, and for 2 causes. The primary I’ve already talked about: the garagistes have just about at all times been an integral a part of sportscar racing basically and Le Mans specifically. The opposite is that the whereas the WEC doesn’t essentially want them proper now, it at some point undoubtedly will. Identical to it did when the Hypercar division changed LMP1 for 2021. Historical past has a behavior of repeating itself.
Glickenhaus was one of many first marques to decide to the LMH class that has rejuvenated sportscar racing, and may have a particular place in historical past because of this
Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Images
With out Glickenhaus would the category even have gotten off the bottom? A pair of Toyotas in opposition to an {old} ORECA P1 with an Alpine badge nailed to the entrance and a snazzy blue paint job wouldn’t have been a lot of a launchpad for the fantastic period we’re getting into proper now. So when the historical past books are written, we have to keep in mind that Glickenhaus was there from the beginning. One thing that has largely been forgotten is that Jim was in reality first to stay his hand up and decide to constructing an LMH.
The foundations that inspired him to take action, the efficiency home windows which can be such an vital element of the price discount and the strict limits on growth, maybe ought to have stored Glickenhaus within the sport longer. However the regulation of the jungle means the little man is at all times going to be up in opposition to it with regards to staying on phrases with the massive producers.
Moreover, Jim and his firm produce other fish to fry. He’s turning into a bona fide producer constructing his 004 sportscar that we’ve seen in its ‘C’ racing spec on the Nurburgring 24 Hours and his off-road Boot underneath the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus banner. Maybe sooner or later, if Glickenhaus comes again, we received’t regard him as a garagiste.
However he was simply that in his three-season WEC journey with the 007. And I suppose we’ve obtained Enzo Ferrari accountable for the outline, which is by some means becoming on condition that the Italian producer was the one marque Jim actually wished to go up in opposition to.
Some 60-plus years in the past, the {Old} Man famously described the British groups more and more turning into a thorn within the Scuderia’s facet in Components 1, the likes of Cooper and Lotus, as garagistes, and in addition assemblatore. It was supposed as a disparaging comment, make no mistake.
The time period Ferrari supposed to be derogatory was adopted as a type of badge of honour by the British motorsport business, extra normally utilized in its French relatively than Italian type. That explains my use of the phrase garagiste to explain Glickenhaus Racing and why I couldn’t make any apology to that man Olivier.
Photograph by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Glickenhaus will likely be missed within the WEC subsequent yr