Glickenhaus 2023 line-up revealed on WEC Sebring entry list

The duo, who have been part of the line-up since the US entrant joined the WEC in 2021 with the Pipo-engined 007 Le Mans Hypercar, were confirmed when the entry list for the opening round of this year’s series at Sebring was published on Wednesday. 

Briscoe and Pla will join fellow team regular Romain Dumas in the Glickenhaus squad’s full-season entry in the Hypercar class for the Sebring 1000 Miles on 17 March and are set to remain part of the line-up through the season. 

Team founder Jim Glickenhaus told Autosport: “Ryan and Oli are locked in for Sebring and will drive #708 with Romain. 

“Romain and Oli are pretty much in for the season, but we could bring in another driver to join them for either Portimao or Spa [rounds two and three of the 2023 WEC in April] as we look for drivers for our second car at the Le Mans 24 Hours.

“Ryan will definitely be with us at Le Mans, most likely in #709 [the team’s additional entry for the 24 Hours in June]. We’re kind of taking each race at time as we build up to Le Mans.”

Together with the naming of Franck Mailleux for #709 on the Le Mans entry list published this week, the confirmation of Pla and Briscoe means that the team has retained the four available drivers who raced its cars at the French enduro in 2021 and ’22. 

Richard Westbrook and Pipo Derani, who completed the line-up in 2021-22, are racing Cadillacs in the WEC and IMSA SportsCar Championship respectively, with both on duty at Le Mans with their respective Chip Ganassi Racing and Action Express Racing teams. 

“We’re very happy with the four drivers we’ve got so far and they’ve all done a great job for us,” said Glickenhaus. 

37 cars entered for Sebring opener

Ferrari 499P at Sebring

Photo by: Ferrari

The top Hypercar division will comprise 11 cars for the Sebring season-opener, with 37 cars entered across all three classes.

Toyota, Peugeot and Ferrari and Porsche will each run two cars as scheduled, with their previously-announced drivers, with Glickenhaus, Cadillac and Vanwall fielding single entries.

A total of 13 cars are entered in Hypercar for the full WEC season but the two privateer Porsche 963 LMDhs fielded by Jota and Proton Competition are absent from Sebring. 

Delays in the delivery of the customer Porsche prototypes has forced both teams to push back the respective debuts of their new cars: Jota is set to race its 963 from Spa and Proton most likely at Monza, the first round after Le Mans.

Jota will run an LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07 at Sebring in the colours of new sponsor Hertz for its Hypercar drivers Will Stevens and Yifei Ye and Porsche Formula E test and reserve driver David Beckmann, boosting the LMP2 entry to 12 cars.

Ryan Cullen will race the Vector Sport ORECA alongside Gabriel Aubry and Matthias Kaiser, but is not confirmed for the full season.

Proton, which is focusing on GTE Am at Sebring in the absence of its Hypercar entry, has announced drivers to share its pair of Porsche 911 RSR-19s with Harry Tincknell and team boss Christian Ried. 

Tincknell will share the #88 car with Zach Robichon and Ryan Hardwick, while Ried will drive the #77 car entered under the Dempsey-Proton banner with Julien Andlauer and Mikkel Pedersen. 

Riccardo Pera and Ben Barker return to the GR Racing line-up alongside Michael Wainwright. 

The only TBA on the entry for Sebring is in the works-run Northwest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE. The team has yet to nominate a silver-rated driver to share with Nicki Thiim and Paul Dalla Lana.