Bill Riley is hoping to return with a pair of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars he supports in IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GT Daytona category.

The No. 33 entry for Riley veteran Ken Keating is expected to continue, but the drivers for the second car – one shared by Cooper MacNeil and Gunnar Jeannette for most of the season – need to be identified.

“If I had a crystal ball right now, I’d say I’ll be running two Mercedes-AMG GT3s next year,” Riley told RACER. “That’s what my crystal ball would say.”

As the company responsible for looking after the Mercedes-AMG GT3 in North America, Riley was pleased to start the season off with a podium at the Rolex 24 at Daytona and watched as his cars won three straight from March’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring through COTA in May.

The early pace for a new manufacturer to GTD caught the attention of IMSA, which applied Balance of Performance changes that dialed the V8-powered coupe down by a noticeable amount.

“It started off decent – we had an OK Daytona but weren’t quick enough, then had a great Sebring and Long Beach, great COTA, and were on our way, then got hit a little bit,” he said. “We’re trying to fight, but it’s not fun where we are rules-wise – we’re trying to make the best out of it.”

It’s believed sales of more Mercedes-AMG GT3s for use in IMSA or the Pirelli World Challenge series have taken place after the strong debut season for the model in both championships. Ending the season with a victory would more than satisfy Riley who, despite the BoP sanctions, says he’ll keep pushing to the maximum.

“We’ve been running the car as hard as we can everywhere we go,” he added. “I don’t know if everybody else is doing it, but we are, and it bit us, but we aren’t going to achieve anything by playing games now. We’ll do our best the same way we always do.”