The Le Mans GTE-AM-Winning Ford GT Has Been Disqualified
The winner of this year’s GTE-Am class at Le Mans has been disqualified. The Ford GT, car number 85 entered by privateer team Keating Motorsports, was initially given a 55.2-second time penalty as its fuel stops were shorter than the minimum time allowed of 45 seconds.
This demoted the car to second place behind the Porsche 911 RSR of Joerg Bergmeister, Patrick Lindsey and Egidio Perfetti, until the FIA and ACO, the organisers and authority for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, found the car’s fuel tank was 0.1-litres over the minimum capacity and disqualified it completely.
The number 68 factory-backed Chip Ganassi Racing Ford GT, that crossed the line fourth in the GTE-Pro class, has also been found to have a fuel tank that holds too much, and it too has been disqualified. This comes as a real blow for the team, as Ford has declared 2019 will be the last year it supports the GT in racing. The other three GTE-Pro GTs finished fourth, fifth and sixth in the amended results.
The Ford GT’s Balance of Performace – the regulations applied to each individual car to try and maintain close racing within the championship – changed before the endurance race, after the cars had left for the circuit. According to the team, there weren’t the resources at the track to recalibrate the cars accurately enough.
Although the ruling could be appealed, Ben Keating, owner of the GTE-Am team and one of the drivers of car 85, has said he will not challenge the decision.
In a manner far more polite than anyone who’s had a win stripped from them for a minor fuel infraction has any right to be, Keating has taken responsibility for not leaving a ‘margin for error’.
In an interview with Sportscar365, Keating was incredibly understanding:
“If I was the second-place car, I’d be saying a rule is a rule.
“We didn’t get it right and we didn’t leave ourselves enough margin for error. In both instances, we just tried to get too close to the sun. Keating Motorsports was not trying to gain an unfair advantage. We were racing to the rules and just too close to the limit.”
It’s not unlike the FIA and ACO to be so strict when enforcing its rules, last year the LMP2 class winners suffered a post-race penalty. Thankfully, such draconian attitudes from the organisers won’t stop Keating competing next year.
‘I think we have the ability to perform at a level that can win the race again. We did not win the race because of an advantage we received from any type of fueling. I hope to go back and prove that it wasn’t a fluke.’
Comments
All because of a 96.1L fuel cell that was 96L before the race but “mysteriously” gained 100cc during the race? how does that work?
Heat can make metal expand.
That metal doesn’t alway return 100% to its original form,but can stay a little bit bigger due to beating.
And constant refueling can beat up the extremely hot tank.
That’s the only logical argument I can have. That or inertia stretching it.
But both are extremely unlikely.
Fuel tanks on racing cars are made of three parts - a hard metal container, a soft fuel bladder and an explosion supressant foam. The fuel isn’t stored directly inside the metal fuel tank but inside the soft fuel bladder, which is placed inside the metal container.
It’s easily possible that the soft fuel bladder can change its capacity, which is why the FIA requires you to leave a margin of error so that you don’t exceed the maximum capacity. This team didn’t do it, and they were disqualified. A necessary punishment, but too harsh IMO - a simple time penalty would have been more appropriate.
This is why nobody cares about this kind of racing anymore, too many bs rules.
I don’t know how limiting the size of a fuel tank in an endurance race is a bs rule
Damn, that must be hard to hear for the drivers and the team,
I think Ben Keating accepted the fault and that somehow the fuel cell had a crease in it or something that caused it to be larger than expected
Disqualification? For an inconsequentially minor discrepancy in the size of their tank? That’s bullshit of the highest order right there
Yeah, but if they give you that 100cc discrepancy now, it will quickly be taken advantage of. It’ll turn into .2L, .3L and so on. Governing bodies are forced to enforce like this in matters that are clearly black and white. A time penalty would only encourage teams to find the balance of performance and penalty. It really does suck. They did a fantastic job. Lots of class, too for accepting the penalty.
100ml additional fuel is hardly inconsequential in a 24 hour race. That additional fuel would allow the drivers to avoid fuel saving measures (like lifting and coasting at the end of a straight or short shifting) for a few laps which could easily add half a second a lap.
Multiply that by 4 or 5 laps for every fuel stint done by the team over the 24 hours, and that 100ml of capacity can suddenly be a minute or more ahead of where they would have been.
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Why couldn’t they give them a penalty? They worked out the pit stop was 0.4 seconds faster when stopping for fuel, over the course of the race it’s a 55 second advantage. Surely a time penalty would be less harsh?