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Risi Ferrari teams up with Keating for Le Mans entry

Three-time Le Mans 24 Hours class winner Risi Competizione will return to the French enduro this year in the GTE Am ranks.

#82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE: Toni Vilander, Giancarlo Fisichella, Pierre Kaffer

#82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE: Toni Vilander, Giancarlo Fisichella, Pierre Kaffer

Marc Fleury

#82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE: Giancarlo Fisichella, Toni Vilander, Matteo Malucelli
#43 Keating Motorsports Riley MK30 Gibson: Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Ricky Taylor
#43 Keating Motorsports Riley MK30 Gibson: Ben Keating, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Ricky Taylor
#62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE, GTLM: Alessandro Pier Guidi
#62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE: Alessandro Pier Guidi
#62 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GTE: Alessandro Pier Guidi
#82 Risi Competizione Ferrari 488 GT3: Ricardo Perez de Lara, Martin Fuentes, Santiago Creel

Risi has confirmed it has no plans to field a Ferrari in GTE Pro this season and will instead link up with US driver/entrant Ben Keating to run one of the Italian manufacturer's 488 GTE cars under the Keating Motorsports banner.

Keating has decided to team up with Risi after landing one of the two automatic invites awarded at the discretion of the organisers of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship for the Le Mans centrepiece round of the FIA World Endurance Championship on June 16/17.

The American, who competes in IMSA with a Mercedes-AMG GT3 run by Riley Motorsports said: "I'm a car dealer from Texas, working mostly out of Houston, and it just so happens that Giuseppe Risi is a car dealer from Houston.

"I race a Mercedes in IMSA, which is not an option for GTE, so it is a good match up to partner with Risi."

Jeroen Bleekemolen, who was a race winner in the GT Daytona class in the IMSA SportsCar Championship last season, will be the platinum driver in the Risi-run Keating Ferrari at Le Mans.

The third driver alongside Keating and Bleekemolen, who have raced together at Le Mans for the past three years, will be announced at a later date.

Risi technical boss Rick Mayer explained that the team, which finished a close second in GTE Pro at Le Mans in 2016, would not be returning in the premier GT class for "financial reasons".

He said it was undecided whether the Le Mans entry would be made using the Ferrari with which Risi is contesting a limited IMSA programme this year or one of its other chassis.

Risi has worked with privateers at Le Mans in the past: it ran US privateer Tracy Krohn's entries in 2007-10, notching a pair of podium finishes in GT2.

The second of the automatic Le Mans entries that can be awarded by IMSA has gone to the JDC-Miller Motorsports team, which claimed a pair of mid-season podiums last year with its Oreca LMP2.

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