Holt: Race-by-Race Ford GT Entries Still Possible

Multimatic’s Larry Holt hasn’t ruled out single-race Ford GT entries into the 2019-20 FIA World Endurance Championship season despite having a full-season entry request for Keating Motorsports denied.

The chief technical officer of the Canadian engineering firm responsible for developing the Ford GT racer had originally been hopeful of obtaining a full-time WEC presence in support of a customer team.

This came despite Multimatic missing the May 21 deadline for entry applications, with Holt saying the company had been given an extension from the series.

However, with time passing, Multimatic and its prospective partner teams have needed to shift their focus to one-off WEC races or completely different programs.

When asked if any potential Ford WEC entries would be on a full-time or individual round basis, Holt said: “single race entries”.

“We missed the deadline, but I still have a bunch of privateer guys there chasing me,” Holt told Sportscar365.

“WEC might be tough but if we get guys to do ELMS… the car is really popular. When you see Keating ‘win’ at Le Mans, then every Am guy wants one.

“They even want us to build new ones. The car is still there and competitive. The only time you’d normally stop with something like that is if the rules change.

“It’s hard to stop with a car that could still be competitive for another two years. We’ll see.”

Holt wouldn’t specify a WEC race to target next season beyond the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

He suggested that Keating Motorsports, which recently ran a Ford in the Le Mans GTE-Am class, would be open to returning after its competitive showing last month.

But Ben Keating, who owns his Ford GT race chassis, is yet to decide on where he will be racing next year.

“I mean, Keating would like to go back to Le Mans, and we would always support that,” said Holt.

“Bill Riley [who operates Keating’s program] is a North American-based guy and I’m both sides of the Atlantic. Bill can’t handle things both sides of the Atlantic, so [Le Mans 2019] was a one-off.

“It was then helped heavily by Ganassi. If Keating ever did that again then we would be heavily involved in that and we would help them out for sure, and I know Ben really well.”

ACO Not Shutting the Door on Ford GTs

Holt explained that he is in constant “open communication” with WEC organizer the ACO regarding Multimatic’s future projects.

“I talk to the ACO every day. It’s the only way,” he said. “You need to stay in contact with those guys no matter what you’re doing, because you’ve got to be in touch with them for your next project.

“They know everything that’s going on. We have open communication with those guys.”

Despite missing the full-season entry window, Holt suggested that the ACO would likely welcome the Ford GT back to the championship in a single-race capacity.

“There’s no yes or no [from the ACO]. I think they would always welcome something,” said Holt. “They’re only going to have six Pro cars. But I can’t say that I have something or that we’re working on something.

“We’re working on [the new Ford GT Mk.II] a lot. That kind of takes your eye off one thing because now we’ve got this thing going on.

“We’ve already sold some of them, and those customers all want them now. I’ve got to deliver a couple of cars in August already.”

Multimatic is responsible for building the recently-launched Ford GT Mk. II track-only supercar, and also has several other projects currently on the go including a Transatlantic Ford Mustang GT4 race program.