Acura & Meyer Shank's Reunion Leads to a Podium Finish at Daytona

Yahoo

07-02-2025

After a year apart, Meyer Shank Racing and Acura have teamed up again — and the Honda Racing Corporation / Meyer Shank Racing expansion is off to a great start, after the No. 60 MSR ARX-06 took the second spot on the podium in the 63rd running of the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona earlier this month.
With an hour remaining in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, it looked like Porsche Penske was about to secure a rare 1-2 victory in the prestigious event. The No. 6 Porsche, piloted by Matt Campbell, was in the lead at the start of the final hour before Felip Nasr in the No. 7 Porsche took the lead. In the closing 20 minutes, however, Tom Blomqvist in the No. 60 Acura MSR ARX-06 hunted down the Porsches, shaving time on the entry to the road section of Daytona International Speedway on every lap until taking second place away from the No. 6 while passing under the flag stand.
"I drove the wheels off the thing and managed to get one of the Porsches, but the other one was a little bit too far ahead — just not enough time, really," Blomqvist said in his post-race comments. "Who knows what could have happened with a few more laps."
"Huge thanks to everyone at Acura MSR, Acura, and HRC. It's a big joint venture this year with the team. There's a lot more people involved, and there's a huge amount of effort and resources that's gone into this program and it's definitely a good way to start — and let's roll on to Sebring."
By partnering with MSR for the 2025 IMSA season, HRC is more deeply rooted in and invested in sports car racing. MSR and Acura won the 2023 Rolex 24 together with Colin Braun and Blomqvist, who found themselves on the 2025 No. 60 lineup, this time joined by IndyCar's Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist.
HRC and MSR have a different relationship this year than they had the last time they were linked in the 2023 season, with HRC running one of the two cars. While both cars are run as a joint effort, the No. 93 has an HRC race engineer, assistant engineer, and strategist, while the No. 60 is fully staffed by MSR.
Last year, the two Acuras were run in collaboration with Wayne Taylor Racing; the No. 40 and No. 10 cars took sixth and seventh place in the 2024 IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship, respectively. With the switch from WTR to MSR, the teams had just nine weeks to prepare for the 24 Hours of Daytona. During this time, everyone learned to grow comfortable in their new roles.
Ahead of the start of the 2025 season, Road & Track talked with HRC's VP Kelvin Fu about the realignment. "If you didn't know about our setup, it would almost appear like a two-car team under MSR," Fu said. "That's kind of what we wanted. They're really not two separate teams. The advantage of having two cars is they've got to be one integrated unit and then you can do different strategies or different plans for the two cars. They have to still kinda operate under one central authority."
The last time that Meyer Shank ran the Acura ARX-06, they were a one-car team; HRC's increased involvement helped their transition to a two-car team. For HRC, it gives the team a larger sense of responsibility over the results of the ARX-06.
"I don't think you can be being on the pit stand and being responsible for the car, right?" Fu said. "There's nothing like it in terms of the pressure and speed that you need to do, and I think that's also good for bringing a little bit of that back into HRC too."
The 2025 season started with the No. 93 Acura on the outside pole before a mechanical issue ultimately ended their chances in the opening six hours; the team would finish 14th overall and eighth in the GTP class, 40 laps down.
Alex Palou was driving when No. 93 halted on track due to a rear-left suspension issue. The team repaired the car and got it back out, only losing about an hour of track time.
"Sometimes it's a team mistake or driver mistake, so you know what you could have done differently, but this time it was just a failure, and we couldn't have done anything differently," Palou said. "It's unfortunate, but happy at the same time we got running again. We got a lot of laps in for myself and for the team and that's going to help us be a bit stronger in Sebring."
Both the MSR No. 60 and No. 93 will be back in action next month in the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring.
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