Risi Competizione has their three drivers ready for the 24 Hours of Le Mans this June.
The team has signed Pipo Derani, Oliver Jarvis and Jules Gounon for their Ferrari 488 GTE in the GTE Pro category.
The American-Italian team has cherry-picked a good mix of experience, youthful dare and not the least speed, who hasn’t already been signed to other teams.
The team was most recently entered the Le Mans race in 2017, where they unfortunately had to retire just a few hours into the race.
Their entry this year is slightly controversial. The rules says that you need to do a full season in either an ACO series or in IMSA, to participate in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The team has so far only run at the 24 Hours of Daytona, but skipped the 12 Hours of Sebring in the IMSA series. So they are actually not qualified to participate – but Ferrari has asked to get a third car in the race, just like they had last year, in the light of Porsche and Ford having four cars each. So the ACO has bent the rules a bit, so one of their biggest entrants, racing in both FIA World Endurance Championship, European Le Mans Series and the Asian Le Mans Series plus IMSA, is happy.
Photo: JJ Media
Pipo Derani also raced the third Ferrari at Le Mans in 2018, but he was works driver for Ford Chip Ganassi Racing prior to that. He currently races for Whelen Engineering Cadillac #31 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, where he’s sitting in the championship lead.
Oliver Jarvis was racing at Le Mans with Audi Sport Team Joest for many years. When they ended their programme, he got a job by Jackie Chan DC Racing in their LMP2 FIA WEC programme and was part of that team at Le Mans 2017. There was no Le Mans start in 2018 for the rapid Brit, so he is even more excited about this year’s race.
Jules Gounon won the ADAC GT Masters in 2017 for Callaway Competition Corvette, but he left the series for a works driver contract with Bentley Motorsport. This will be his debut at the 24 hour race, but he already has endurance experience from places like the Spa 24 Hours, Dubai 24 Hours Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 hours.
The team will race with car number 89 in this years 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is run on 15-16 June 2019.
