The duo, who have been part of the series since the American entrant joined the WEC in 2021 with the Pipo-engined 007 Le Mans Hypercar, were confirmed when the entry list for this year’s series opener at Sebring was released on Wednesday.
Briscoe and Pla will join regulars Romain Dumas in Team Glickenhaus’ full-season entry in the Hypercar class for the Sebring 1000 Miles on March 17 and are set to remain part of the series throughout the season.
Team founder Jim Glickenhaus told Autosport: “Ryan and Oli are locked in for Sebring and will drive the #708 with Romain.
“Romain and Oli are pretty much out for the season, but we could bring in another driver to join them at either Portimao or Spa (rounds two and three of the 2023 WEC in April) as we look for drivers for our second car in Le Mans 24 Hours.
“Ryan will definitely be with us at Le Mans, probably in the #709 (additional team entry for the 24 Hours in June). We take every race as we build Le Mans.”
Along with the naming of Franck Mailleux for #709 on the Le Mans entry list published this week, the confirmation of Pla and Briscoe means the team has retained the four available drivers who raced their cars in the French enduro in 2021 and the ’22.
Rounding out the 2021-22 line-up, Richard Westbrook and Pipo Derani race Cadillacs in the WEC and IMSA SportsCar championships respectively, with both on duty at Le Mans with their respective Chip Ganassi Racing and Action Express Racing teams.
“We are very happy with the four drivers we have so far and they have all done a great job for us,” said Glickenhaus.
37 cars entered for the Sebring opener
Ferrari 499P at Sebring
Photo: Ferrari
The premier Hypercar division will feature 11 cars for the Sebring season opener, with 37 cars across all three classes.
Toyota, Peugeot and Ferrari and Porsche will each run two cars as planned, with their previously announced drivers, with Glickenhaus, Cadillac and Vanwall having individual 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 Porsche prototypes for customers have forced both teams to push back the respective debuts of their new cars: Jota is set to race its 963 from Spa and Proton likely at Monza, the first round after Le Mans.
Jota will run an LMP2 ORECA-Gibson 07 at Sebring in the colors of new sponsor Hertz for 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 in 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 the pair of Porsche 911 RSR-19s with Harry Tincknell and team principal 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 entry for Sebring is the factory Northwest AMR Aston Martin Vantage GTE. The team has yet to name a silver-rated driver to share with Nicki Thiim and Paul Dalla Lana.