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COVER STORY
6 Le Mans Hypercar analysis
We assess the state of the class after the opening three rounds
COLUMN
5 Alastair Macqueen
The need for speed is in the blood, and the blood line
FEATURES
16 Michelin simulator
Pioneering tyre development in the virtual world
24 Ferrari 499P
Maranello’s new prototype has hit the track running. Here’s how
30 Garage 56
A detailed look at the engine in the Stock Car racing at Le Mans
38 Electramotive GTP
How Nissan took its V6 engine to the podium in the 1980s
48 Hillclimbing
Chassis and aerodynamic approaches in the Unlimited class
TECHNICAL
56 E fuels
The latest developments in alternatives to electric
66 ’Boxing clever Recent advances in transmission technology
75 Danny Nowlan
How the 2015 Nissan GT-R LMP1 could have been a success
BUSINESS
80 Interview
Stéphane Ratel on the buoyant state of GT3 racing
82 Bump stop
“Idon’t think there is any race driver that could really tell you why he races. But I think he could probably show you.” Steve McQueen got it spot on. That point of driving on the limit in harmony with the machine is indescribable in words.
It seems there was always a passion for speed with McQueen, be it on two wheels or four, but it also appears to have run ‘in the family’.
My great uncle, Drew, was a fairly handy speedway rider in the 1920s and ’30s and made a good living in the sport. He is also famous for being the first man to climb Ben Nevis on a motorbike, a properly heroic act in its day.
The two-wheel fascination seemed to skip a generation with my father. On his return from the war, his chosen mode of transport was a BSA three-wheeler. This was economical in a time of petrol rationing and allowed him to travel from Inverness to Anglesey whilst courting my mother.
In later life he became chairman of the BSA Front Drive Club and owned a number of three and four-wheel BSAs.
My mother tells me that as a toddler I could name all the cars we would see long before I could name all the family. At school, I formed the model car club and persuaded the woodwork teacher to allow us to build a slot car track on four 8 x 4ft boards stored in there. The cars I built were sold on to other club members to fund my next build and I was writing articles for Model Cars magazine in my early teens.
In 1966, I was an exchange student in the Loire Valley, almost within earshot of what was going on a few miles north in Le Mans. The closest I got was looking at the GT40 model kits in the shop windows in Saumur, but I did win the North West area slot car championship with my Gulf Mirage in 1968.
I had no idea I would end up working within motorsport and could only dream of going to Le Mans, so made do watching ‘uncle’ Steve’s movie.As it turned out, I would go on to run cars, or teams, at Le Mans on 16 occasions between 1986 and 2008 resulting in eight class wins, including three overall victories.
After running Toyota’s 3.5 atmo’ cars at Le Mans in the early ’90s, I was called on to engineer
the team’s Super Touring Carinas. Under an agreement with TOM’s Toyota, I was also allowed to subcontract out to engineer the Gulf McLaren cars in sportscar races, and at Le Mans to keep my sportscar knowledge up to date.
In 1997, I joined the team on a full-time basis as head of engineering. That year we were running three of the ‘long tail’ McLaren GTRs in Gulf livery. They would compete in the GT class just behind the open top Sports Prototype cars.
Things didn’t go that well in practice and, although the cars were largely reliable and on the pace of the other GT cars, it seemed unlikely we would be able to challenge the prototypes. Then we lost a car to an oil fire out on the circuit, which we later traced to a pressurised BMW oil fitting on the engine had cracked and sprayed the exhaust.
Drivers Pierre-Henri Raphanel, Jean Marc Gounon and Anders Olofsson were driving swiftly, staying out of trouble and, more importantly, staying out of the pits. Their average time in pit road was just over one minute per hour. I had time to look at the strategy for that car and found that if we were careful we could complete the race without changing a single brake component – a first on a carbon-braked car. By getting the drivers to adjust the brake balance a few per cent fore and aft we could use all the available brake, and finish.
A quick measurement each time the wheels were changed lost us no time as the car was being fuelled, then I would work out the balance setting for the next stint.
When Gordon Murray designed the centre driving position in the road going McLaren, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of the great benefit it would have when the car went racing. The fact you could get a driver out one side whilst the following driver got in the other helped greatly in assuring no car would be in the pits for a shorter time during the race than this one.
The prototype leading the race was interesting, and one that I knew parts of very well. The front half was derived from Ross Brawn’s XJR14 Jaguar, and the rear half from a Porsche 962, amalgamated by the Joest team. A cut ’n’ shut Le Mans winner anyone?
The crack driving squad were a pair of ex-F1 Ferrari pilots, Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson, and a young lad called Tom Kristensen. Tom had driven F3 for TOMs and was good, very good, but I don’t think anyone thought at that stage he would go on to become Mr Le Mans, with an unprecedented nine wins.
We would win together a few years later.
Given there was no time prior to the race to design, manufacture and test an alternative part, BMW’s answer was to fit new ‘zero mileage’ parts to the race engines. For most of the McLarens in the race this fix worked. Unfortunately, not the one I was engineering, so that was two out of three roasted Gulf Mclarens that year.
Gutted dosen’t cover it but, on the positive side, it did free me up to devote more time to the no.41 car, which was making its way to the front of the field in a steady but unspectacular fashion.
Our Gulf McLaren was just one lap down on the Joest prototype at the end of the race. A GT winner, yes, but just a lap away from overall victory is the closest a GT car has ever come.
So, this Macqueen got a GT win with a Gulf car at Le Mans, something ‘uncle’ Steve missed out on, though I’ll never get even close to his ‘cool’!
Just to ramp up the celebrity status a little more, the GTC team owner was a former Williams F1 team manager. His name was Michael Caine. Not a lot of people know that.
Our Gulf McLaren was just one lap down on the Joest prototype. A GT winner, yes, but just a lap away from overall victory is the closest a GT car has ever come
As Le Mans gears up to celebrate the centenary of its rst 24-hour race, we look back at the Hypercar contenders’ opening races of the 2023 FIA World Endurance Championship season
By ANDREW COTTON and PAUL TRUSWELLThe record books show that Toyota has won the opening three races of the FIA World Endurance Championship, held at Sebring in March, and Portimão and Spa, both in April. However, this year teams face the challenge not only from the Glickenhaus privateer that beat them in some sessions last year, but also Ferrari, Porsche, Cadillac and Peugeot.
This is the first year the LMDh cars are running in the FIA WEC and already there are questions over the integration of the cars into the series. The Le Mans Hypercars (LMH) are ground-up designs and include Toyota, Peugeot, Ferrari, Glickenhaus and Vanwall. The LMDh cars, (which confusingly run in the US as GTP) include Porsche and Cadillac.
Changes have been made to the regulations as organisers try to bring all these cars into a performance window where they can compete on equal terms. Aero, power and weight are balanced across the cars. However, complicating matters is the fact the hybrid LMH cars are four-wheel drive, while the LMDh cars are two-wheel drive. In order to balance them, the LMH cars have had their performance castrated, with the minimum deployment speed that was originally set for wet conditions now applied to dry conditions as well. Deployment speed is different for the Toyota and Ferrari compared to the Peugeot, due to the fact the Peugeot 9X8 uses narrower rear tyres than the LMH cars.
The Peugeot also has a 50 / 50 weight distribution, so having a wider front tyre than its competitors suits the design of the car. However, when the rules were changed to allow Peugeot to switch tyre choice, the French manufacturer chose not to, and now pays the penalty for delivering power through rear tyres smaller than those of its hybrid competitors for longer, due to its front hybrid deployment speed.
The LMDh cars were designed with cockpit-adjustable rollbars, and so the FIA and ACO mandated all cars could have such devices. The organisers also forced the LMH hybrids to run with an open differential at the front, again with the intention of balancing the cars.
The FIA and ACO confirmed before Sebring in March that they would lock in the Balance of Performance for the races up to, and including, Le Mans, hoping this would mean manufacturers would not hide performance before the big race.
Nevertheless, they did leave room for a so-called ‘platform change’, in which the LMDh and LMH cars could have their performance adjusted if necessary. This option was not exercised before Spa, despite expectation that the FIA and ACO would activate this clause.
All cars must fit into a small aerodynamic window and have similar lift / drag properties, as measured in the Sauber wind tunnel in Switzerland. They all have similar weight and similar power, but the way they are designed means they have strengths and weaknesses in different areas.
Toyota, having raced the GR010 for two years, refined its design this year with the weight distribution moved forwards, thanks to a lighter engine and gearbox. The team also designed a different aero package compared to 2022. It is naturally more refined than cars that had their design and development rushed to meet the homologation deadline.
Cars are locked into their design for five years. Teams can introduce performance updates in that time, if the requests are granted by the FIA and ACO. Toyota refuses to say how many of the five permitted jokers it has used, but admits it has the pace-setting car, so cannot, and will not, ask for more. Other teams can ask, and no doubt will, for next year. It’s worth noting that parts changed for safety and reliability are not restricted the same way, but permission still needs to be granted by the FIA.
This year, the Endurance Commission pushed through a planned regulation that removed tyre warmers. This has led to a re-think of how tyres should be used, and at Spa the lack of tyre heating was a contributory factor in a number of accidents. Organisers say the drivers have to get used to the new regulation, the drivers say they are at risk of
crashing when they leave the pits on cold tyres. For Le Mans only, tyre warmers have been re-introduced, and experts believe this could help Ferrari, which has to run harder tyres than its main rivals, Toyota. Teams are also not given enough tyres to single stint throughout the race. This means they need to double stint at least one set, and carry over the tyres from qualifying. The ability to manage tyre wear has consequently proven to be the most challenging part of this year’s competition.
The GR010 has been the class of the field in each of the races, but has not necessarily had the upper hand in terms of outright performance. The strength of the Toyota has come from its ability to run a second stint
on the same set of tyres faster than anyone else. While Ferrari took pole position at the opening race at Sebring, the Toyotas were able to complete the double stint with a vast advantage on the second stint and so won handsomely. ‘It seems clear that we make the difference on the second stint,’ said technical director, Pascal Vasselon, in Florida. ‘We keep good pace, when the competitors cannot, and they pit before the end of their stint. We are good at managing the energy, so we use it where it is important to use it. We get the energy that corresponds to our engine efficiency. Everyone is balanced on this, but it is true to say that we manage this better than the others.’
The team then moved to Portimão mid-April. This is a more traditional layout of circuit compared the concrete runways laid in the 1940s that are a feature of Sebring. Toyota was fast, but Brendon Hartley was forced to pit following the failure of an FIA-mandated torque sensor. Work was subsequently done to ensure the FIA and ACO could do more to leave a car running, even without the relevant data from the sensor. Toyota was able to run the whole race on the soft compound tyres, while others went for harder compounds, hence the advantage on tyre warmers. The winning GR010 lapped the field on its way to victory.
On to Spa, and Toyota had other issues. Hartley crashed on cold tyres in qualifying, meaning the no.8 car had to complete the race on one fewer sets of tyres than the sister car, if the team didn’t use the flatspotted qualifying set. The weather was also more of a lottery, the track being damp at the start, and air temperatures were lower than had been seen all season. Four cars finished on the lead lap, but were headed by the two Toyotas, the winning car 69s ahead of the third-placed Ferrari.
Ferrari has finished on the podium at every race so far this year, but is still learning how to operate the car to its maximum potential, and operationally is still lagging behind Toyota. The car is a little heavy on its tyre wear, meaning that normally the team would opt to run a harder compound than Toyota.
Despite that, Antonio Fuoco set pole position at Sebring, but strategic errors saw both cars pit early and come out in traffic. High tyre wear was a feature of their race, and then Alessandro Pier Guidi crashed.
‘We were expecting a very difficult race,’ admitted Ferdinando Cannizzo, head of endurance race cars for Ferrari. ‘After the pole, qualifying was motivating for us, but it was clear we needed to progress. It was very difficult to keep pace with the Toyotas ahead. We still got the podium, so we will go back home happy, but there is a lot of work to do.
‘I think it was obvious we were struggling at the end of the second stint. It is clear they [Toyota] have the experience and we don’t. We were not expecting to arrive here and teach something to them.’
‘We keep good pace… [and] we are good at managing the energy… We get the energy that corresponds to our engine efficiency. Everyone is balanced on this, but it is true that we manage this better than the others’
Pascal Vasselon, technical director at Toyota Gazoo RacingToyota’s GR010 is class of the field, and much of its advantage comes from the abilty to conserve rubber
Tables 1, 2 and 3 below show the outright performance of each of the Hypercar class entries in the rounds at Sebring, Portimão and Spa. It is worth explaining that the ‘Average Best 20% of Green’ column takes the average of the best 20 per cent of laps completed under fully green conditions. In the case of the no. 7 Toyota at Sebring, which completed 14 laps under full course yellow, the average is over the best 45 laps.
The ‘Average Lap Fastest Stint’ is usually slightly slower, and comprises the best average lap time of all the green laps in a full single stint (where a full stint is anything over 40 minutes). The ‘Percent’ columns show the difference in
lap time for that car and the fastest lap in that column, so is useful for comparing differences.
The colour bands shows how close to the ‘best’ an individual row is, ranging from green (very close) to red (far away).
At Sebring, the second-placed Toyota actually has the better lap times – an indication that no team orders were in place and that each car was free to run as quickly as it was able. Notice that both Ferrari and Cadillac are less than one per cent behind Toyota.
As a rule of thumb, it is generally reckoned that a one per cent difference is equivalent to a 15-minute pit stop at Le Mans. In other words, if you have a one per cent advantage, it is possible
to regain the lost ground from a 15-minute pit stop.In a six-hour race, where there is less time to catch up, a one per cent delta is equivalent to a stop of just 3m 36s.
Ferrari clearly marked itself out as the biggest threat to Toyota, firstly by scoring pole position in Florida, and secondly by showing good pace in the race, although the Italian team was second rate in speed, time in pits, and not being able to go as far on a tankful of fuel as the Japanese cars.
In Portimão, in terms of performance, the Italian squad was not as close to the Toyotas as it had been at Sebring. Porsche was the team that improved the most here, with both Cadillac and Ferrari on virtually identical average lap
graphical summary
times, by both measures, and well within the one per cent margin.
At Spa-Francorchamps, there were additional cars entered, from Porsche with the JOTA entry, and a second Chip Ganassi car from Cadillac. The weather conditions, as well as over an hour spent behind the safety car, means the data is not as meaningful to analyse as that from the more consistent races in Portimão and Sebring. This may have helped JOTA, which was always going to struggle, but the team was at least on the pace of the Penske entries.
What is interesting about the Spa data is that it shows the performance of Ferrari as being pretty much aligned with the no. 7 Toyota, yet the no. 8 car was significantly off the pace. This is curious, since the data is looking at fast laps only, so should exclude the effects of the weather and safety cars, so this might potentially indicate a ‘split strategy’ in terms of car set-up by Toyota.
The block graph shows the percentage points of each car based on the average of the best 20 per cent green laps. A data point close to zero shows that car being on the pace for that race, the further from the x-axis, the further off the pace that car is.
The biggest disappointment of the season so far has been the performance of the Peugeot 9X8s. Although they have proved themselves quicker than either Glickenhaus or Floyd Vanwall, they have been consistently slow on track and have only occasionally broken into that one per cent margin. If the French team is going to feature in the top end of the results this year, it is going to have to make an improvement somewhere, since not only is it slow – relative to the competition –but also needs to find better reliability.
The other two manufacturers, Glickenhaus and Floyd Vanwall, are running as non-hybrid Hypercars, and the evidence of the data so far this year suggests they are unable to perform against the bigger budget teams. Again, not only has the pace been absent, but reliability, too.
The data in the block graph suggests that at least the performance of the Glickenhaus 007 has been steadily improving over the course of the year, which is more than can be said for the Gibson-engined Vanwall.
Rising Average graphs, as shown on p9, are useful for comparing performance, where the sample size is roughly the same, but care must be taken when different sizes are used. It is a useful comparison to see not only the extent of Toyota’s advantage, but also the relative performance of the rest. The three graphs on this page show, from the top down, the rising averages for each of the three races that have so far taken place, from the opening round at Sebring, to Portimão and the third race, in April
In Portimão, Ferrari was not quick in the race, and the team admitted it was too conservative with its tyre choice. More worrying was the second car had a brake-by-wire failure, causing the front brakes to overheat.
‘It was a natural step forward,’ said Guiliano Salvi, Ferrari GT and sportscars race and testing manager, of the overall performance. ‘We respect Toyota, they have been here for 10 years, and we are not at their level, but we need to learn and further improve the car.
‘In Sebring, we were not nursing the tyre enough, and here we could push more, at the beginning and during the race. There is a lot on the system we need to improve.’
For Spa, the team set the cars up for the dry conditions expected, only to have the race start wet. Knowing its car has higher tyre wear than Toyota, the Ferraris started well on wets, but they quickly wore out on the drying surface. The medium tyre was also a contributory factor in Fuoco crashing straight out of the pits on cold tyres.
‘We tried to focus our car on a dry set-up, and it was working on consistency, but we struggled a lot at the start,’ said Salvi. ‘Then there was the problem with Fuoco. It comes from this new regulation without [tyre] blankets, we saw that with Toyota yesterday. We said many times that Spa could be a critical happening, and it was proven to be that.
‘We have to understand the car in different conditions. We came for a test, it was wet, and we had a few dry runs on a green track, so there was no baseline for us. We tried to set the car up for a high-efficiency circuit, and in these conditions we were okay, but we didn’t cover the window well enough.’
The Cadillac V-Series R is run in both IMSA and the FIA WEC by Chip Ganassi Racing, and has locked itself into a battle with the other LMDh challenger from Porsche. The car features a chassis from Dallara, a 5.5-litre V8 engine developed within Cadillac Racing, and the spec hybrid system.
The car is not at the pace of the LMH cars, particularly in race conditions, although qualifying has seen it come close. At Spa, the car was just 0.2s off the pole time, which presents the FIA and ACO with something of a headache. The car is quicker than some of the LMH cars, so a platform change in favour of LMDh would unfairly penalise those at the back of the LMH grid.
The team is happy, though, as Cadillac has had at least one car run cleanly in all three races so far, providing good data for the performance balancing group. At Sebring, the car was penalised for not slowing down enough under caution, but ran without technical issue.
‘There are a few things to tidy up on our side, like full course yellow speed where we lost a lot of time,’ said driver, Earl Bamber, after the race. ‘You expect that coming to the WEC as a new manufacturer and learning the tricks of the trade that Ferrari and Toyota have learned.
‘From the outside, we can be proud to take the fight to Toyota. There were only five good cars in the race – the two Ferraris, two Toyotas and us.’
In Portimão, a mistake by Richard Westbrook coming into the pits flat spotted a set of tyres, but otherwise it was another good race for the team.
‘Ferrari is very good on the new tyre, they can explode a good lap time,’ said driver, Alex Lynn, ‘but we are better on a double stint. We ran well again, we learned a lot and there are so many things to improve.’
Spa, however, was a different story. The third car – a spare in Europe that had to be built up to race – was entered into the six-hour race, with the US driving team. Dutch driver, Renger van der Zande, was in the car when ‘finger trouble’ caused the engine to catch fire, and during the race he crashed heavily, with the cause yet to be determined. The accidents leave the team short of spares heading into Le Mans with its three entries.
‘It was very difficult to keep pace with the Toyotas ahead. We still got the podium, so we will go back home happy, but there is a lot of work to do’
Ferdinando Cannizzo, head of endurance race cars for Ferrari
‘From the outside, we can be proud to take the fight to Toyota. There were only five good cars in the race [at Sebring] –the two Ferraris, two Toyotas and us’
Earl Bamber, Cadillac driver for Chip Ganassi Racing
bosch-motorsport.com/lmdh
Drivers and material pushed to the limit: endurance racing is the ultimate test of durability in motorsports. The year 2023 ushers in a new era for one of the most important and prestigious forms of motor-
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At Sebring, Sébastien Buemi was the star driver for Toyota, with team mate, Ryo Hirakawa, a little disappointing. From the ranks of the non-Toyota drivers, the rising average graph shows the best four from the remaining Hypercar drivers, of whom Antonio Fuoco for AF Corse and Earl Bamber for Cadillac Racing were both outstanding.
For those unfamiliar with rising average graphs, the flatter the line is, the more consistency is indicated. The Sebring graph at the top shows how impressive Bamber’s performance was, compared to the rest. Equally, Fuoco managed more in the no. 50 Ferrari than either Miguel Molina or Niklas Nielsen.
Moving on to Portimão, which like Sebring was held in ideal conditions, observe the middle graph. Here, it is not so clear cut who the best of the Toyota drivers was. As always, though, it depends how you define best. Mike Conway was undoubtedly quick, but he wasn’t able to put in the same kind of consistency as José Maria Lopez. And both were eclipsed by Brendon Hartley in the no. 8 car.
From the non-Toyota drivers, once again the top 10 was filled by three Ferrari drivers and Earl Bamber in the LMDh-spec Cadillac. However, despite Molina putting in 10 very fast laps, it was Niklas Nielsen in the no. 50 Ferrari who most impressed, eventually finishing in second place overall – the best result for a nonToyota this year.
The rising averages from Spa (bottom graph) are potentially the most misleading, due to the changing conditions. The graph is also the hardest to read. Note how the different gradients of the lines change the order from the left to the right of the graph. That Mike Conway features at all in the top 10, given conditions at the start of the race, when he was on slick tyres, is testament to his ability and value to Toyota Gazoo Racing.
Both Miguel Molina and Alessandro Pier Guidi were mightily impressive in Ferraris nos. 51 and 50 respectively, their consistency very strong. Once again, Cadillac Racing was in the mix, this time it was Alex Lynn – who took over the V-Series.R. from Bamber to drive the middle stint – who was both quick and consistent.
Porsche’s 963 was tasked with developing the hybrid system for the LMDh cars as it was the first to be ready for track testing. However, numerous issues led to limited testing mileage throughout 2022, and the car is still not reliable enough for the team to be confident of winning races this year. In short, it needs work on brakes, turn-in, vibration, tyre wear and pace.
The Porsche Penske team that prepares the two cars was only put together in March of 2023, and at Sebring put in long shifts to try to understand the car, so team members were exhausted before the race.
In Florida, the car didn’t have the pace, tyre wear or fuel economy to be anywhere near the front and, by the end of the eight-hour race, was four laps behind the winning Toyotas, and two laps behind the Cadillac.
The team identified that vibrations from the engine were causing issues, and so moved to protect the sensors for the Portuguese race. A power steering failure slowed Fred Makowiecki there, while the sister car finished on the podium, more than a lap down on the winning Toyota.
The team’s tribulations continued in Belgium. One car had an electrical fault, meaning the team had to change the steering wheel to bring the dash data back up, while the other went dead stick out on track, following a complete shut down of its electrical system.
Makowiecki ran in third place in the final hour, but high tyre wear meant he didn’t have the car under him to defend from James Calado’s Ferrari in the closing stages of the six-hour race.
‘It is interesting the top speed Ferrari could pull out,’ said Porsche’s director of factory racing, Urs Kuratle. ‘We didn’t do anything wrong, or strange, but at that position in the race we were beaten by the Ferrari, and he was really fast. The speed trap is exactly where he overtook us and it was amazing, he pulled the stickers off our car.
‘We had some improvements on the car since Portimão, but we are still not happy. We have the same big issues [with] the braking phase and steering. Improvements have been done but not enough. We will continue testing, and we are not fishing in the dark, but we have to test.
Arguably, Peugeot has been the most affected by the rule changes that have balanced the LMH and LMDh rules. When the 9X8 was first designed, it was compulsory to have the same size tyres all round. Toyota was forced into the same choice, but was able to adapt to the wider rear, narrow front format, while Peugeot cannot do so easily.
The 9X8 has 50 / 50 weight distribution and strong underfloor aerodynamics, so does not require a rear wing. However, it struggles to ride the kerbs, has high rear tyre wear due to putting the power down solely through the rear axle up to 150km/h, and is still struggling with the reliability issues that have plagued the car since it made its debut at Monza in 2022.
At Spa, it was rumoured the team was looking at producing a new engine for next season, and a new concept too, possibly including a rear wing. Shifting the aero balance rearwards might open the possibility of a different tyre choice, but whether a wing would be enough is open to question.
Sebring was a disaster for the team. The bumps around the track, lack of testing and lack of reliability in the gearshift and hybrid systems were all problematic. As one car rolled into pit lane on the green flag lap and stopped close to Stellantis CEO, Carlos Tavarez, one team member described his position nearby as ‘quite lonely’.
The team made the change from electronic to hydraulic gearshift actuators for the Portimão race where the cars ran solidly for six hours.
‘We made a lot of effort in the past days to secure some reliability, and it works,’ said Peugeot technical director, Olivier Jansonnie. ‘Having two cars at the end was a good relief. There were some good runs in the race, and we really raced, not for first position, but we raced for position, which was good for the team.’
Peugeot also suffered a torque sensor failure on the driveshaft but was able to continue to the end of the race, albeit at reduced pace.
‘There is still some stuff we have to learn on tyre management, and on this we are learning a lot,’ says Jansonnie, ‘but the gap to Toyota is massive for us, and everyone else.’
At Spa, things improved and there was confidence growing in the team ahead of Le Mans. The cars ran well, although not fast enough to trouble the sharp end of the grid. ‘The gap between the cars is the same here as Portimão, and will be the same at Le Mans,’ concluded Jansonnie.
Jim Glickenhaus’ team is one of the most popular on the FIA WEC circuit. The American team will have two cars on the grid at Le Mans, but needs to raise its performance if it’s going to go home happy.
The [Porsche] is still not reliable enough for the team to be confident of winning races this year. In short, it needs work on brakes, turn-in, vibration, tyre wear and pace
The team has a higher-downforce, low-drag floor that was designed but never built or put onto the car. Likewise, it has not yet fitted a cockpit-adjustable anti-roll bar. The car also didn’t test from Monza in 2022 to Sebring in 2023. As others take the game forwards, some have pointed to that as a lack of commitment to develop the car, but the American’s view is that this is a performance balanced category, and he shouldn’t have to invest money in the car to make it quicker.
‘When we entered the championship, we were told we would have a fair and equal chance to win,’ says Glickenhaus. ‘Last year it was within that window, or not too far off, but this year it is substantially different.
‘We have to see if there is a way forward to be successful. Beyond that, it remains to be seen. I am not going to race with no chance to win.
‘I think that without investment, it is impossible to compete, and then we are being forced out of the championship. That’s not in the spirit of the championship, and is something I am not interested in.’
The car raced at Sebring, but an ignition wire came loose there, which switched off the engine while out on track. At Portimão, the Glickenhaus finished five laps down on the winning Toyota, while at Spa it came in 13th, two laps down on the winner.
The Vanwall team finally made its race debut at Sebring, and what an opening it was. The car is not the most complicated on the grid, being a non-hybrid and using the tried, tested and
What have we learned from the three races of the WEC season so far? That Toyota is the team to beat is beyond debate, and it will not be easy to do so. However, it would be a brave man that wagers the Cologne-based team can win all the remaining races this year. The fact Ferrari took pole in Sebring surprised Toyota, and a second place at Portimão was further indication of its strength. Given their relative inexperience, the consistency of the Ferrari drivers must also be a worry for Toyota.
trusted combination of Gibson engine and Xtrac gearbox. There’s also a great deal of Formula 1-proven technology evident in the cooling system, and at Sebring the car proved to be reliable.
Team owner, Colin Kolles, was rather more scathing about the performance of his team, pointing out that human errors had prevented the car reaching its potential. It’s hard to imagine what he thought after the front brake disc caught fire at Portimão, putting Jacques Villeneuve into the tyres. The Canadian was behind the wheel at Spa, too, when the Vanwall was hit by a Ferrari and crashed out of the race.
It’s a new car, so will need time to realise its potential, but it clearly has performance potential waiting to be unlocked.
On the evidence of the season so far, as well as the championship points table, Ferrari is in second place, but how secure?
Porsche may be third in the championship standings, but the performance potential of the Cadillac suggests, if luck should roll its way, that could change. The performance margin is sufficiently small that both Toyota and Ferrari will have to hope for bulletproof reliability if they are to keep the Cadillacs at bay. But of course, Cadillac has had its own reliability issues to deal with. If that luck should come in the
shape of a base BoP change for the LMDh cars, then both Cadillac and Porsche would benefit. Having won Le Mans more times than any other manufacturer, and being the most recent team to beat Toyota at Le Mans, Porsche have perhaps had the most disappointing start to the season of any of the leading contenders. That said, Team Jota arrived at Spa with a brand new 963 that was immediately close to the pace. So, will we see the UK-based team running regularly quicker than Penske Motorsports before the end of the season?
‘When we entered the championship, we were told we would have a fair and equal chance to win. Last year it was within that window, or not too far off, but this year it is substantially different’
Jim Glickenhaus, owner of Scuderia Cameron GlickenhausVanwall has had some bad luck in the early races of the season, but clearly has huge potential waiting to be unleashed