Friday, June 18, 2021

A Few Quick Sports Car Notes

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!