Honda Racing Company USA has confirmed that former sequence champions Meyer Shank Racing will return to its Acura program for the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship.
It comes a 12 months after the workforce misplaced its deal to run a factory-supported Acura ARX-06 when it was found that it had manipulated tire knowledge throughout the 2023 Daytona 24 Hours – a race that it gained. Later that season, it additionally triumphed legally in occasions at Mosport and Highway Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans.
HRC revealed that a part of its multi-year dedication to the venture contains it taking over a ‘bigger operational function’. Its personal employees will race engineer one among its two GTP entries, whereas MSR will area the second Acura ARX-06.
“Working our personal GTP automobile is the following, thrilling step for our associates at HRC US,” stated David Salters, HRC USA’s president. “We race to develop our folks and expertise and we’re thrilled to be partnering with MSR to race our ARX-06 towards a few of the world’s finest sportscar groups.
“For this reason the following logical step for us is race engineer our personal automobile.”
#60 Meyer Shank Racing W/Curb-Agajanian, Acura ARX-06, GTP: Colin Braun, Tom Blomqvist, Helio Castroneves #10: Konica Minolta Acura ARX-06, Acura ARX-06, GTP: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque, Louis Deletraz
Picture by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
Mike Shank, who co-owns the workforce with former enterprise government Jim Meyer, stated he was “grateful” to rejoin the Acura fold. MSR additionally fields two Honda-powered vehicles within the IndyCar Sequence.
“First, on behalf of everybody at Meyer Shank Racing, I need to specific our gratitude to David Salters and everybody at HRC and Acura for giving us this chance,” stated Shank.
“We’re supremely grateful to have earned this new alternative and everybody on the workforce is wanting ahead to day one in our new relationship with Acura, and the brand new function we’ll be enjoying in HRC US’s IMSA program.”
MSR will put together and keep each Acuras from its services positioned in Etna, Ohio. It has beforehand campaigned a number of profitable Acura race vehicles together with NSX GT3, ARX-05 DPi and ARX-06 GTP machines, racking up race wins and championships in IMSA earlier than the cut up on the finish of the 2023 season.
Salters thanked the outgoing Acura GTP workforce Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, which now appears sure to land the factory-supported Cadillac program in 2025. Along with Acura, WTR has gained two races this season, the Sebring 12 Hours and Detroit road dash.
Race winners #40: Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, Acura ARX-06, GTP: Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz, Colton Herta
Picture by: Motorsport Images
“I want to sincerely thank Wayne Taylor, the WTR with Andretti workforce and its gifted drivers,” stated Salters. “We now have shared some good and profitable occasions collectively; and we sit up for ending 2024 with extra top-level racing.”
Wayne Taylor responded with an announcement: “We now have had a profitable run with HRC and Acura these previous 4 years. When it got here to renewal, we listened and took their future plans into critical consideration, however in the long run, felt we wanted to go in a distinct course transferring ahead.
“With three key races left within the season, our plan is to proceed to concentrate on successful extra podiums and races for Acura and to finish the 12 months sturdy We’re wanting ahead to saying our plans for 2025 within the very close to future.”
Focus will now flip to the motive force line-ups for every programme, with Tom Blomqvist prone to spearhead MSR’s return after being dropped from its IndyCar line-up after this 12 months’s Indianapolis 500.