Keating to Step Back From Full-Time Racing

Ben Keating will step back from full-time competition in the FIA World Endurance Championship or IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next year as he instead focuses on one-off outings.

The 55-year-old Texan, considered one of the top FIA Bronze-rated drivers, has been a stalwart of both series, first making his IMSA debut in 2011 before joining the WEC field in 2019, and has claimed four class titles among the LMP2 and GTE divisions across the two series in that time.

However, Keating told Sportscar365 he now wants to “go out and do whatever sounds fun instead of trying to commit to a full season” as he has “other ways I want to spend my time.”

But Keating stressed he has no plans to retire from racing altogether “because I love it.”

“I hope to do Daytona and maybe Sebring and I hope to do Le Mans but, with as full as the fields have gotten on the full-season stuff, it’s really hard to find a seat,” he said.

“I’m hopeful that I‘m able to find a seat for those races. If I can, great — if not, so be it.

“But I hope to do some historic racing and hope to do a lot more Chump Car racing.

“I have a 1970 Ford Mustang and a 1996 Acura Integra that I race in those series and the fun per dollar ratio is really high so I hope to do more of that.”

Keating also suggested that he would like to complete some off-road racing with his daughter as his navigator.

However, before then, Keating’s target is to help TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R co-driver Jonny Edgar win the WEC LMGT3 title.

Having missed the opening two rounds after elbow surgery following a pre-season mountain biking accident, Keating is not in contention himself but it has still been a memorable campaign that has featured his third class triumph in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and he is now determined to finish the season on a high.

“I love Fuji, I love Barcelona, I love Monza, I love the fact they’re all six-hour races so there’s less points available,” he said.

“At the beginning of the season, Corvette Racing or GM asked me if I had the choice of winning the championship or winning Le Mans, what would I do and I said, ‘You always choose Le Mans.’

“And so now that we were lucky enough to check that box, our goal is to win the championship for Jonny.”

Keating himself currently sits third in the standings but reckons the chances of Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and himself completing a 1-2-3 in the table, having contested different rounds of the season, will be “extremely difficult.”

The trio failed to score in last weekend’s 6 Hours of Circuit of The Americas when still carrying considerable success ballast following their Le Mans triumph and Keating is now tied on points with the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo crew of Alessio Rovera, Simon Mann and Francois Heriau in third.

Ironically, Keating had two clashes with the sister No. 54 Ferrari of Thomas Flohr early in the race.

“I still think we would have had a decent race if we hadn’t been hit twice by the same driver,” said Keating, who ultimately finished 12th at COTA.