Keating moves to TF Sport

Ben Keating will move to TF Sport for the upcoming FIA World Endurance Championship season 2021.

The American car salesman is ready for another season in GTE Am, but this time it will be onboard an Aston Martin Vantage.

He will bring both Felipe Fraga and Dylan Pereira from Team Project 1, for which he raced in the 2019/20 season. Pereira has been synonymous with Porsche throughout the past few seasons, but he will battle directly again the German brand now. Pereira and Keating raced together for the first time at the season finale in Bahrain, where Felipe Fraga couldn’t be there, due to his commitment in the Brazilian Stock Car series.

Keating has some kind of pre-love for V8 front engined cars. He raced an SRT Viper for a few years, before moving into a Mercedes in the IMSA series. He tried driving Porsche during the 2019/20 season, with a single win and a further podium position.

Ben Keating will make his TF Sport debut this weekend, where he will do the Rolex 24 at Daytona in the GTD category. He will double up and race for PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports in LMP2 too. The FIA WEC doesn’t allow double duty on the same race day, so it will be a single car on – opposite to the US.

TF Sport Aston Martin #33
Graphics: TF Sport

It’s a bit of surprise that Keating hasn’t opted to go with at least one Aston Martin factory driver – but he has always stuck to the drivers that made him comfortable. Even though Jeroen Bleekemolen was seen as a bit of Porsche expert for many years, and Mercedes expert later on, he always brought him to whatever LMP2, GTD or GTE Am challenge. They have however split up after more than a handful of years together in both IMSA and FIA WEC.

The car will run #33, which is Ben Keating’s favourite racing number from the US – and that has become possible now that the ACO has opened up for all numbers for all cars, instead of 0-50 for LMP and 51-99 for GTE.

The FIA WEC season is scheduled to start at Sebring on 18 March 2021.

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