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CORVETTE RACING AT MONZA: Ben Keating Transcript
Corvette Racing’s Ben Keating was part of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s pre-event press conference today ahead of Sunday’s Six Hours of Monza. Keating and teammates Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone share the No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R and can wrap up the GTE Am Drivers and Teams championships this weekend on the strength of wins at Sebring, Portimao and Le Mans:
BEN KEATING, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “It’s obviously been a fairy-tale season. You’d be crazy to expect it to go this way. Things just seem to have fallen into our hands, really. We haven’t always had the fastest car, and we’ve gotten extremely lucky many times throughout the season. What really makes this kind of unique is that I can look back at every race and I can point to different people on the team where I feel like they have made a specific difference. It’s really been much more of a team win throughout the season, which has been really nice. It’s a really well-run team but a tight-knit group of people who all love to do well and love to perform for each other. It’s a really fun team to be part of. There have been plenty of races so far this season where I feel like I have let everybody down but other people have picked up and covered it for me. It’s been great. Our plan is to do what we've been doing – put one step in front of the other, do our job well and hopefully we get enough points to close it out at some point in the next three races.”
ON LAST YEAR’S RACE AT MONZA WITH TF SPORT AND IF THERE IS ANY UNFINISHED BUSINESS: “I really love this track. I feel like I have always been quick here. Unfortunately it has not loved me back. I had a blowout on the backstraight in 2021 and blew the whole front of the car off – the bonnet, the splitter, the floor, the exhaust… it was a big explosion. And of course last year we had a rock that broke the bleeder noodle off the caliper. Going into the braking zone at the second chicane, we had no brakes which ended our race last year in dramatic fashion. I don’t believe this place owes me anything. But we’re going to go back at it again and see if we can change that luck.”
The Six Hours of Monza is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. CET / 6:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, July 9. MotorTrend and MotorTrend Plus will provide both live television and streaming coverage, as will the FIA WEC app. Radio Le Mans will stream audio coverage of qualifying and the race.
2023 FIA World Endurance Championship – GTE Am (After four of seven events)
Driver Standings
1. Ben Keating/Nicky Catsburg/Nico Varrone – 133
2. Ahmad Al Harthy/Charlie Eastwood/Michael Dinan – 59
3. Michelle Gatting/Rahel Frey/Sarah Bovy – 56
4. Francesco Castellacci/Thomas Flohr/Davide Rigon – 47
5. Alessio Rovera/Lilou Wadoux/Luis Perez Companc – 43
Team Standings
1. No. 33 Corvette Racing – 133
2. No. 25 ORT by TF – 59
3. No. 85 Iron Dames – 56
4. No. 54 AF Corse – 47
5. No 83 Richard Mille AF Corse – 43
CORVETTE RACING AT CTMP & MONZA: By the Numbers
• 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 25 years of racing: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette
• 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at CTMP since 2000 – Corvette C5-R (2004), Corvette C6.R (2005-13) and Corvette C7.R (2016-2019). The Corvette C8.R raced at the track for the first time last season.
• 3: Number of GTE Am wins in four FIA WEC races this season for Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone with the No. 33 Corvette C8.R.
• 6: Hours difference between the IMSA team competing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and the Corvette Racing WEC team competing at Monza on the same days.
• 7: Number of drivers who have won races at CTMP for Corvette Racing. Johnny O’Connell (six), Jan Magnussen (five), Oliver Gavin (four), Ron Fellows (three) and Olivier Beretta (two) each have multiple wins there with the team.
• 7: Pole positions for Corvette Racing drivers at CTMP. Oliver Gavin leads with three with Antonio Garcia (2016) being the most recent.
• 11: Class victories at Corvette Racing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – all since 2001.
• 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001
• 27: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Monza, Portimão, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen
• 34: Number of drivers for Corvette Racing since 1999. Ben Keating and Nico Varrone joined that list with their participation – and victory – in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship.
• 125: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America, nine at Le Mans – including two weeks ago – and three in the FIA WEC.
• 275: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999.
• 11,080.25: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 20 previous trips to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. That represents 4,506 laps.
• 358,144.93: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon… and then some!
Corvette Racing at Monza (wins in bold)
2022
No. 64 Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1st in GTE Pro
Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick
CORVETTE RACING AT MONZA: Ben Keating Transcript
Corvette Racing’s Ben Keating was part of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s pre-event press conference today ahead of Sunday’s Six Hours of Monza. Keating and teammates Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone share the No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R and can wrap up the GTE Am Drivers and Teams championships this weekend on the strength of wins at Sebring, Portimao and Le Mans:
BEN KEATING, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R: “It’s obviously been a fairy-tale season. You’d be crazy to expect it to go this way. Things just seem to have fallen into our hands, really. We haven’t always had the fastest car, and we’ve gotten extremely lucky many times throughout the season. What really makes this kind of unique is that I can look back at every race and I can point to different people on the team where I feel like they have made a specific difference. It’s really been much more of a team win throughout the season, which has been really nice. It’s a really well-run team but a tight-knit group of people who all love to do well and love to perform for each other. It’s a really fun team to be part of. There have been plenty of races so far this season where I feel like I have let everybody down but other people have picked up and covered it for me. It’s been great. Our plan is to do what we've been doing – put one step in front of the other, do our job well and hopefully we get enough points to close it out at some point in the next three races.”
ON LAST YEAR’S RACE AT MONZA WITH TF SPORT AND IF THERE IS ANY UNFINISHED BUSINESS: “I really love this track. I feel like I have always been quick here. Unfortunately it has not loved me back. I had a blowout on the backstraight in 2021 and blew the whole front of the car off – the bonnet, the splitter, the floor, the exhaust… it was a big explosion. And of course last year we had a rock that broke the bleeder noodle off the caliper. Going into the braking zone at the second chicane, we had no brakes which ended our race last year in dramatic fashion. I don’t believe this place owes me anything. But we’re going to go back at it again and see if we can change that luck.”
The Six Hours of Monza is scheduled for 12:30 p.m. CET / 6:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, July 9. MotorTrend and MotorTrend Plus will provide both live television and streaming coverage, as will the FIA WEC app. Radio Le Mans will stream audio coverage of qualifying and the race.
2023 FIA World Endurance Championship – GTE Am (After four of seven events)
Driver Standings
1. Ben Keating/Nicky Catsburg/Nico Varrone – 133
2. Ahmad Al Harthy/Charlie Eastwood/Michael Dinan – 59
3. Michelle Gatting/Rahel Frey/Sarah Bovy – 56
4. Francesco Castellacci/Thomas Flohr/Davide Rigon – 47
5. Alessio Rovera/Lilou Wadoux/Luis Perez Companc – 43
Team Standings
1. No. 33 Corvette Racing – 133
2. No. 25 ORT by TF – 59
3. No. 85 Iron Dames – 56
4. No. 54 AF Corse – 47
5. No 83 Richard Mille AF Corse – 43
CORVETTE RACING AT CTMP & MONZA: By the Numbers
• 1: As in one team, one manufacturer and one model of car for 25 years of racing: Corvette Racing, Chevrolet and the Chevrolet Corvette
• 3: Generations of Corvette Racing entries at CTMP since 2000 – Corvette C5-R (2004), Corvette C6.R (2005-13) and Corvette C7.R (2016-2019). The Corvette C8.R raced at the track for the first time last season.
• 3: Number of GTE Am wins in four FIA WEC races this season for Nicky Catsburg, Ben Keating and Nico Varrone with the No. 33 Corvette C8.R.
• 6: Hours difference between the IMSA team competing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and the Corvette Racing WEC team competing at Monza on the same days.
• 7: Number of drivers who have won races at CTMP for Corvette Racing. Johnny O’Connell (six), Jan Magnussen (five), Oliver Gavin (four), Ron Fellows (three) and Olivier Beretta (two) each have multiple wins there with the team.
• 7: Pole positions for Corvette Racing drivers at CTMP. Oliver Gavin leads with three with Antonio Garcia (2016) being the most recent.
• 11: Class victories at Corvette Racing at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park – all since 2001.
• 14: Manufacturer Championships for Chevrolet and Corvette Racing since 2001
• 27: Tracks at which Corvette Racing has won races – Baltimore, Charlotte Motor Speedway, COTA, Canadian Tire Motorsport Park/Mosport, Daytona, Detroit, Houston, Laguna Seca, Le Mans, Lime Rock, Long Beach, Miami, Mid-Ohio, Monza, Portimão, Portland, Road America, Road Atlanta, Sebring, Sonoma, St. Petersburg, Texas, Trois Rivieres, Utah, VIR, Washington DC and Watkins Glen
• 34: Number of drivers for Corvette Racing since 1999. Ben Keating and Nico Varrone joined that list with their participation – and victory – in the 1,000 Miles of Sebring for the World Endurance Championship.
• 125: Victories worldwide for Corvette Racing – 113 in North America, nine at Le Mans – including two weeks ago – and three in the FIA WEC.
• 275: Event starts by Corvette Racing since 1999.
• 11,080.25: Number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing in its 20 previous trips to Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. That represents 4,506 laps.
• 358,144.93: Total number of racing miles completed by Corvette Racing since its inception. To put that in perspective, Corvette Racing is more than halfway to the distance traveled by Apollo 13 – the longest manned spaceflight in history: 622,268 miles. That means Corvette Racing has raced to the moon… and then some!
Corvette Racing at Monza (wins in bold)
2022
No. 64 Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner/Nick Tandy – 1st in GTE Pro
Ryan Smith
Judy Kouba Dominick
