Hmm? Shouldn’t we be running some ‘lil ‘Ol Gory 24
Hours Sports Car race right now?
Damn! IN thoust Blink ‘O Eye, it’s already
Sum-Sum-Summertime, not to mention nearly Summer Solstice which Sigh, means the
Days will once again be getting Shorter, but I digress…
Which means traditionally we’d either just had
the annual running of, or more likely this weekend would be contesting the yearly
24 Heurs du Mans event.
Thus I suppose it was planned to coincide with
the (previously) upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship’s (WEC) 8 Hours of
Portugal race when Ferrari announced on June 7th that they’d chosen
to partner with AF Corse for their forthcoming ACO/FIA Le Mans Hypercar (LMH)
project for 2023.
As AF Corse has a longtime history partnering with Scuderia Ferrari in
the International GTE Tintops Ranks, currently contesting the WEC’s GTE Pro
category with the evocative Ferrari 488 GTE. Having won the category three
times at Circuit de la Sarthe since 2012. As the new venture will be called
Ferrari-AF Corse.
Meanwhile the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus 007
made it’s Ontrack Debut in the World Endurance Championship with just one car,
the #709 driven by past Chip Ganassi Racing (CGR) Ford Gt Pilotes Ryan Briscoe
and Westie’, (Richard Westbrook) along with Romain Dumas. As the team had
tested extensively prior to Portimao, including a 30 hour endurance test, where
an electrical issue was found.
Thus the team elected to rebuild the car into a
newer, lighter version, and we should see two Glickenhaus entries at Autodromo
Nazional du Monza in Italy in just over a month’s time on July 18th,
as the final Tuen up to Le Mans.
Unfortunately Briscoe was involved in a crash
at the two hour mark with the car subsequently “Toasting” it’s Clutch and
ultimately finished the race 30th Overall, but did finish, as it’s
still early days indeed…
As I enjoyed the Teams Press Release neatly saying Crashed Once, Touched Once and burned Up a Clutch and replaced It, but Did Finish!