Keating Motorsports confirmed as 14th invited team at Le Mans

This afternoon, the ACO confirmed the list of 14 auto-entries for this years Le Mans 24 Hours on June 17-18th. 

14 teams have already won an invitation to participate in qualifying for the 2017 Sarthe Classic. These have been awarded taking into account the results of the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours, European Le Mans Series, IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, Asian Le Mans Series, the last round of which took place this Sunday, and the Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup.

As reported last week, 13 entries were already known following the end of the Asian Le Mans Series. The remaining entry still had to be proposed by IMSA and has been appointed to Ben Keating Racing with the Riley-Multimatic LMP2. It's still to be seen of Keating will run the car on his own team, or in collaboration with Visit Florida Racing which is racing the same car in IMSA. Visit Florida Racing also planned to apply for an entry at Le Mans this year. Keating will be one of the three drivers, the other two still to be announced. Jeroen Bleekemolen is expected in the Riley (they share a Mercedes GT3 in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship). If Visit Florida Racing supports Keating at Le Mans, Marc Goossens could well be the third driver, reuniting the team that drove the Murphy Prototypes Oreca03 last year. 

This is the final roundup of the 14 cars invited: 

LMP1

Porsche Team

LMP2

Signatech Alpine 

G Drive Racing 

United Autosports

Keating Motorsports

Algarve Pro Racing

Tockwith Motorsports

GTE 

Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA (Pro)

Scuderia Corsa (Am)

Aston Martin Racing (Pro or Am) 

JMW Motorsport (Pro or Am)

DH Racing (Pro or Am)

TF Sport (Am)

Each invitation will be confirmed only if the car in question is entered in one of the following three championships in 2017: Asian Le Mans Series, European Le Mans Series and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. 

The entries for the 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours, FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) and European Le Mans Series have been open since Friday 16th December. The closing date is today Tuesday 24th January.  The complete lists will be announced live from Le Mans on Thursday 2nd February at 16:00 in exclusivity on the internet in a totally new innovative format. As of now the media and surfers can pose questions via the social networks using the hashtag #Endurance2017. 

Kristof Vermeulen. 

Riley Mk30 LMP2 breaks cover

With the delivery of Visit Florida Racing's Riley Mk30/Gibson this afternoon at Carolina Motorsports Park, the fourth and final new LMP2 chassis broke cover. 

© Visit Florida Racing

The pictures released by the American team are the first of the new Riley LMP2 chassis. Marc Goossens and Renger van der Zande, both full time drivers for the team in the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship took their first laps in the car today. Further testing will continue at the official IMSA test at Daytona International Speedway next week. 

© Visit Florida Racing

All four cars now broke cover and are undergoing intensive testing ahead of the 2017 season. 

The Ligier JSP217 was the first car to be unveiled at the ELMS weekend at Spa. Since then, the Onroak Automotive prototype has covered more than 6000 testing kilometers so far, both in Europe and in the USA with the first tests as a converted DPi prototype scheduled in the upcoming weeks. 

© Onroak Automotive

The Oreca 07 was presented by the end of October at the Paul Ricard circuit in France. Oreca is also the only manufacturer who offers an "upgrade kit" for their current Oreca 05 to the 07 specification. 

© Alexis Goure/Oreca

The car has been tested thoroughly in the past months, ahead of racing in the FIA WEC, ELMS and IMSA.

© Alexis Goure/Oreca

Meanwhile some spy shots were published of the brand new Dallara testing in Italy. Up untill now, the Dallara LMP2 hasn't been officially presented, with not much details already known about the car. 

© Racing Team Nederland

Villorba Corse have published some renderings of the Dallara that will be entered in the ELMS next season. Dutch team "Racing Team Nederland" who also acquired the Gibson engined Italian chassis though have published several pictures since they started testing the car in november. As from next week they will test the Dallara at Sebring. An entry in the ELMS is on the cards for 2017 and an application for the Le Mans 24 Hours. 

© Racing Team Nederland

Kristof Vermeulen.