Ben Keating is no stranger to Le Mans. With two each of the IMSA LMP2 Championship and FIA WEC’s GTE Am Championships under his belt, Keating will enter Le Mans this year as the back-to-back GTE Am champion.
But this year, instead of a GT car, Keating is piloting the #23 United Autosports USA ORECA 07.
It is Ben’s tenth attempt at Le Mans this year, and remarkably, he will be driving his ninth different car. Inviting the challenge of different machinery makes the event feel new each year, but Ben says that his one repeat drive was one of his most challenging at Le Mans – even though he won.
“We won in 2022 [with TF Sport], and I remember specifically really struggling with the Aston Martin in 22,” he recounts. “Even though I did the full season and Le Mans 2021 in that car, for some reason, I just did not have the speed.”
A first Le Mans class victory, with Henrique Chaves and Marco Sørensen, was the result.
This year is a whole new challenge. While Keating has had experience in LMP2 machinery at Le Mans, including in the 2017 LMP2 regulation cycle, the prospect of the ORECA 07 in this field is a challenge that Keating believes is “a big bite of the apple.”
“I’ve been in the ORECA in IMSA for the last four years. I won the championship there in 2021 and 2023. So I feel like I know the car.
“This is the first time I’ve driven an LMP2 that’s a very capable car. My previous two experiences [in a Murphy Prototypes ORECA 03.R in 2016, and a Riley Mk. 30 in 2017] were uncompetitive.
“It’s nice to be able to do what I’ve been watching for the last six years at the seat of a GT car! Watching these other cars go around the outside of me in the Porsche Curves – doing these things that to me just seem ridiculous.”
But he is well aware that there is huge room for improvement.
“It’s nice to push the limits of what I am capable of, or what I think the car can be capable of. But, I ended up being maybe three seconds a lap slower than my Pro-drivers in a GT car.
“In this car [the LMP2 ORECA], I’m six seconds a lap slower than my Pros. The car is capable of a lot more than I am right now.”
Having two super-experienced LMP2 campaigners alongside him, Filipe Albuquerque and Ben Hanley, is accelerating that process. Albuquerque and Hanley’s combined 17 Le Mans starts in prototype machinery – including a class win each – have been a great foil to bring Ben up to speed.
“It’s been nice to have the in-car video, to look at the data. To be able to dive into everything and figure out where I can push the limits more than I already am.”
For Keating, it is a steep learning curve, but it’s much easier to learn with the experience around him.
“When I was club racing, I was the only one in the car. And I was winning in club racing. And I had the perception that because I was winning, I was squeezing every ounce of capability out of the car, that anyone could.
“How foolish that was!” he says with a laugh.
“You get into endurance sportscar racing, you get into the same car at the same track at the same time as a professional driver. And they go so much faster than you do. You get all the data, you get all the video, it’s such a different level of learning in endurance sportscar racing that you don’t get anywhere else.”
It’s clear that for Ben, the personal challenge of learning, and improving, is the drive behind his passion for sportscar racing.
“I’m doing this for fun. I always have to remember that. This is my recreation. And it’s really fun for me to learn.
“And even though I’ve been doing it now for 17 years, I’m much better at 52 than I was at 48. Because of the endurance aspect, of being with other drivers. And learning how they do what they do.”
Keating has a chance to take a third consecutive class victory at Le Mans this weekend, after consecutive victories with TF Sport and Corvette Racing in GTE-Am in 2022 and 2023. With Albuquerque, and Hanley, and Keating’s skills as a Bronze driver, even an attempt at the LMP2 class win isn’t too farfetched. When asked, he plays down those ambitions as ‘ridiculous’ and ‘dreams.’
“To me, it would be magical to be on the overall LMP2 podium. The goal is to win Pro-Am. But I think there are too many strong cars. It just seems ridiculous. Is it possible? Sure, but it just seems too much to ask.
“But like I said earlier, everyone that’s in this race has a dream of winning. I’m no different. I think it’s ridiculous. But I can still dream about it.”
Beyond the dream, however, it’s clear that Ben draws his passion and his excitement for Endurance Racing from the competition. Competition with the other teams, and drivers, but also a competition with himself.
“My family won’t play games with me because of how I am when I get into competition.” Ben laughs.
“I love the challenge. I love it. Not just the challenge of competing against other people, but the challenge of me personally.”
That is the ethos of Ben Keating.
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