Le Mans 2019: GTE Am-winning Keating Motorsports Ford GT stripped of 24 Hours race victory

The winners of the GTE Am class in weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hours have been disqualified from the race classification, resulting in victory being handed to the World Endurance Championship-winning No 56 Team Project 1 Porsche.

Ben Keating’s Ford GT clinched a fairy tale victory in Sunday as the team owner drove alongside Jeroen Bleekemolen and Felipe Fraga through the night to take class victory by 44.9s, despite not competing in either main endurance series in Europe or the United States.

However, the No 85 was subsequently hit with two penalties more than 24 hours after the race had finished.

The first saw a 55.2s penalty applied to its overall time for a fuel-filling infraction, with race organisers the ACO ruling that their pit stops fell under the minimum requirement of 45 seconds for each refuelling, having been clocked at an average of 44.4s. As a result under the regulations, the team were penalised by the indiscretion time of 0.6s multiplied by the number of stops for the No 85 – which registered at 23 – which was then multiplied again by four to result in the penalty time.

The 55.2s alone would have been enough to demote the Keatings Motorsport Ford from first to second, but stewards subsequently found that the Ford’s fuel tank capacity was 96.1 litres, 0.1l over the regulated limit.

Keating has accepted the rulings and confirmed that the team will not appeal the decision to exclude them, explaining that they “tried to get too close to the sun” in not leaving themselves enough margin for error.

“It’s really unfortunate,” Keating told Sportscar365. “The only thing we can figure out is if the [fuel] bladder had a wrinkle in it or what, but somehow or another over the 24-hour race, our fuel cell expanded.

“The fact is that we were one-tenth of a litre with too much fuel. If I was the second-place car, I’d be saying a rule is a rule.

“We extrapolated out what we thought would be a full fill load of 45 seconds. We didn’t get it right and we didn’t leave ourselves enough margin for error. In both instances, we just tried to get too close to the sun.

“Keating Motorsports was not trying to gain an unfair advantage. We were racing to the rules and just too close to the limit.

“The fact is that our team performed flawlessly, we had a great race and nothing can take that away from us.”

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The episode has been a learning curve for Keating and his team, but the Texan added that the disappointment of losing a hard-fought victory after dominating the majority of the 24 hours has not put him off from returning next year in a bid to make up for the near-miss.

“I think we have the ability to perform at a level that can win the race again,” he added. “We did not win the race because of an advantage we received from any type of fuelling.

“Hindsight is 20/20. Looking back, I wish we had put in a half-a-second margin and a half-a-litre margin and everything would have been fine.

“If I had to do it all over again, I would do those things as that race is not won by a half-second on every stop. I hope to go back and prove that it wasn’t a fluke.”

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As a result of the penalty, the second-placed Team Project 1 Porsche is promoted to top honours in the GTE Am class with Jorg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey and Egidio Perfetti taking victory, with the No 84 JMW Motorsport Ferrari of Jeff Segal, Rodrigo Baptista and Wei Lu taking second. The No 62 WeatherTech Racing Ferrari of Cooper MacNeil, Robert Smith and Toni Vilander takes third.

The Keating Motorsports entry was the second Ford to be disqualified from the Le Mans classifications, with the No 68 Chip Ganassi Racing entry of Sebastien Bourdais, Joey Hand and Dirk Muller stripped of their fourth-place finish in the GTE Pro class in what was Ford’s final year competing at Le Mans as a manufacturer, having been found guilty of a similar fuelling indiscretion.