Latest news with #AcuraARX-06
NBC Sports
3 days ago
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
2025 IMSA Detroit starting lineup: Acura sweeps front row in taking first pole of season
Acura swept the front row for the Chevrolet Detroit Sports Car Classic, breaking BMW's pole streak to start the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship season. Nick Yelloly claimed the pole on the streets of downtown Detroit with a 1 minute, 5.762-second lap in the No. 93 Acura Meyer Shank Racing ARX-06. Tom Blomqvist qualified second in the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 for the 100-minute race on the 1.645-mile layout. 'Pole is the best place to start at any street circuit; it usually makes your life quite a bit easier,' Yelloly said. 'Super happy to get my first pole in IMSA. We've been working very hard as a team to make sure we get everything right, chipping away week after week. We go from strength to strength every weekend, and it just keeps getting better and better. STARTING GRIDS: Click here for the Detroit starting lineup l Lineup by row l Lineup by car number 'At a street circuit, you can't just bang in one lap, because you'll probably make a mistake. You kind of need to edge closer to the limit. I knew I'd done a relatively good lap already and knew I had two laps to go at the end. I put it, let's say, all on the line and rubbed the wall a few times, but it was just enough to get that pole.' Meyer Shank Racing earned its first IMSA pole position since July 2023 at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and its first front row sweep since the 2008 Rolex 24 at Daytona. BMW M Team RLL took the second row with Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 25 BMW M Hybrid V8 and Dries Vanthoor, who had captured the first four pole positions this year in the No. 24 BMW. Porsche Penske Motorsport, which has won the first four races this season with its 963s in Grand Touring Prototype, swept the third row with the No. 6 in fifth and the No. 7 in sixth. In the GTD Pro category, the Ford Multimatic Motorsports Mustang GT3s swept the front row with Seb Priaulx putting the No. 64 Ford Mustang GT3 in the top starting spot with a lap of 1 minute, 10.922 seconds. Teammate Christopher Mies qualified second, 0.329 seconds behind. DETROIT QUALIFYING ROUNDUP Starting lineup Lineup by row Lineup by car number Results Results by class Fastest lap by driver Fastest lap by driver after qualifying Fastest lap by driver and class after qualifying Best sector times Fastest lap sequence Time cards Weather report PRACTICE RESULTS: Session I l Session II Two clean laps was all Nick Yelloly needed to claim his first-career IMSA pole on the streets of Detroit, leaving everything on the table in his run that resulted in a front-row sweep for Meyer Shank Racing.
NBC Sports
07-04-2025
- Automotive
- NBC Sports
How to watch the 2025 IMSA Long Beach on USA, Peacock: Streaming info, start times and daily schedules
Off to 'a dream start' in the two longest races of the IMSA season, the No. 7 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 will try to flex its muscles in one of the shortest races of the year. The Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will be a 100-minute sprint through the streets of downtown on Saturday, April 12 (5 p.m. ET, USA Network, Peacock). After closing the team's consecutive victories in the Rolex 24 at Daytona and the Twelve Hours of Sebring, Penske ace Felipe Nasr said his confidence is at an all-time high on the heels of winning the Grand Touring Prototype championship last year. 'I'm living one of the best moments of my career right now in terms of the experience and people I'm working with,' Nasr said. 'So fortunate to be in this position with engineering, Porsche and Penske, putting our names in history together. To me, it's just a moment to be involved with such quality. I have the best team, so I'm able to deliver my best as well.' It'll be a much shorter path to a Long Beach victory for Nasr and co-driver Nick Tandy. Each will drive the No. 7 963 in a race with only one pit stop on the very narrow and tricky street course. 'It's a different dynamic of racing,' Nasr said. It's all about getting most of the track and the best usage of track time. For sure we'll have strong competition heading to Long Beach as well.' Renger van der Zande and Sebastien Bourdais won last year at Long Beach in the No. 01 Cadillac for Chip Ganassi Racing, which is on hiatus from IMSA this season. Bourdais won't be racing Saturday, but van der Zande will team with Nick Yelloly in the No. 93 Acura ARX-06 of Meyer Shank Racing as one of 11 GTP entries seeking the overall win. While Porsche has won the first two GTP races, BMW has captured the pole in both races, and track position figures to be important in a street race. 'I just love this style of racing bringing the GTP cars to Long Beach and extracting the maximum of the car in a track like that,' Nasr said. 'It's a real challenge. Trying to find the details, set up the car, maximize the tires, think about the strategy. It's such a short and compressed weekend that you have to take decisions quicker than the previous two weekends. You'd have more time to analyze and try more. 'Where now at Long Beach it's narrower in terms of the decisions, and you don't have time to think. There's no room for mistakes, and you put yourself where to maximize in every session. It's a tough place to pass. Tough for traffic. It's a one stop race, so you're trying to make sure you've done the best you could for your teammate when you fight for victory. I know there's a lot of competition. Acura, Cadillac and BMW are strong too. It'll be strong competition for sure.' There are 16 entries in the GTD category, including the defending race winner No. 89 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3. Robert Wickens, who has returned to racing from life-threatening injuries in a 2018 IndyCar crash at Pocono Raceway, will be making his GTD debut and sharing the No. 36 DXDT Racing Corvette Z06 GT3 with Tommy Milner, a four-time Long Beach winner. Wickens will be using a new electronic hand-controlled braking system designed by Bosch. It's his first IMSA race since the 2017 Rolex 24 at Daytona. Here are the start times, daily schedules and streaming info for the 2025 IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach: 2025 IMSA Grand Prix of Long Beach WHEN: Saturday, April 12 at 5 p.m. DISTANCE: A 100-minute race on the 11-turn, 1.968-mile street course in Long Beach, Califiornia. FORECAST: According to Weather Underground, it's expected to be 67 degrees with no chance of rain at the green flag. ENTRY LIST: Click here to see the 27-car field in the GTP and GTD classes for the 2025 IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach. Race Broadcast TV/streaming: The IMSA Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach will be televised on the USA Network and streamed on Peacock from flag to flag beginning at 5 p.m. ET on Saturday, April 12. The NBC Sports broadcast will feature announcers Brian Till and Calvin Fish. Dave Burns and Kevin Lee are the pit reporters. RADIO: All sessions live on SiriusXM live race coverage begins April 12 at 5 p.m. (SiriusXM channel 206, Web/App 996) IMSA Grand Prix of Long Beach schedule, start times Here's a rundown of the IMSA schedule this week on the streets of Long Beach (all times are ET): Noon-1 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice 4-5:30 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice 8:10-9 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying (Peacock) 5 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Grand Prix of Long Beach (USA Network, Peacock)
Yahoo
07-02-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Honda warming to idea of Acura FIA WEC Hypercar entry and customer programs
Could we see the Acura ARX-06 competing in the hands of private teams and/or in the FIA World Endurance Championship's Hypercar class in the future? Honda's new-look two-car IMSA GTP effort in lockstep with Meyer Shank Racing made its debut at last month's Rolex 24 At Daytona. The likelihood of an ARX-06 entering the WEC seemed slim when RACER asked HRC US President David Salters about it a year ago, but now it appears that its position on Hypercars is starting to shift. 'First, you've got to balance LMH and LMDh, which seems to be happening,' Salters told RACER 12 months ago when asked if it was viable for Honda to enter the FIA WEC. 'You have to make sure you can compete, then it has to make business and budgetary sense to Honda. Sometimes they line up, sometimes they don't. If in the future they could, we could be interested. 'There is already a rude reality of priorities in the company, and you'd imagine that at the moment, F1 is pretty high priority. We already do global motorsport at the highest level, and we sort of dominate!' A year later, though, it appears Honda is taking a closer look at the WEC's top class, which currently features 18 cars and is poised to swell to more than 20 in the next two years when Genesis, Ford and – as RACER expects – McLaren join in. Salters confirmed that an active evaluation is ongoing. 'Are we interested? Yes, we have an amazing car. The series is growing. Le Mans is Le Mans. Of course, we're interested,' Salters said. 'We've just got to figure out, does it make sense to Honda? And then the economics of it, all that sort of stuff. 'So we are interested, and we are working on it in the background, shall we say. But like all these things, it has to make sense looking forward. 'WEC is doing an amazing job. The series is in very rude health. Super rude health. We have a car that I think will be good. As we've always said, we keep evaluating it, and we are seriously evaluating it, and we see how it makes sense, and does it fit. 'Aside from that, I think IMSA is doing a really, really good job. This is growing here. And when I look over the ocean, ACO/ WEC is doing a really, really good job. The proof is in the pudding. It's growing!' As for the appetite from HRC US to offer customer ARX-06s, there's interest in this area, too. If there's one element of the current convergence era that's failed to take off, it's in the customer ranks, in part due to cost and the availability of cars. So far, Porsche is the only brand that has offered true customer cars to private teams with its 963 platform. But to this point just three teams have found a way to make the sums work, and with JOTA headed to Cadillac to run its WEC factory team this year, just JDC-Miller and Proton remain in 2025. Interestingly, though, there appears to be movement from some of the manufacturers involved in Hypercar and GTP to find a way to make customer programs work in the future. Lamborghini, for instance, is planning a customer-focused future for its SC63 project, and Salters has now confirmed to RACER that HRC US is now interested in supplying cars, should a credible party come forward. 'I think the cars are very complex, so it could have been a lot at the start for someone to get hold of a customer's car and just use it,' he explained. 'I think we're all getting smarter on how we could do that. That may be something that was prohibitive and now is OK, but then there have to be discussions about how we get the cost more under control. 'I'd quite like to have a couple of customers, and we support them, but it needs to be customer stuff. They also need to find the business case that works, because it has to be sustainable in that sense too. I have a budget. My peers have budgets. We can't just give out cash or cars. 'There's active discussion on how to make it cheaper. We need to carry on with the active discussion. It needs to become sustainable, but I'm not opposed to customers. I'd love some, but it's got to be done the right way. 'We are open to customers. We've had some interesting conversations. We're very happy to have more, but it needs to be done on an economically sustainable business basis. But also we want our customers to be able to win. 'It's an Acura. I don't care which Acura wins — the No. 60, the No. 93, or a customer. It's Acura and having more out there in endurance racing is a good thing.' Story originally appeared on Racer
Yahoo
27-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Second almost as good as a win in MSR's Rolex 24 comeback
The Acura Meyer Shank Racing team's IMSA GTP comeback in the 2025 Rolex 24 Hours didn't quite produce the ultimate fairytale result for those involved. But a second-place finish for its No. 60 Acura ARX-06, which crossed the finish line just 1.3 seconds behind the winning Penske Porsche, ensured they left the Daytona paddock last night with their heads held high. It was never going to be an easy trip to Florida to kick off the 2025 season for the Ohio-based outfit. After a year-long pause for its IMSA program, it found itself thrown in at the deep end with an expanded two-car effort, a larger workforce, a freshened-up driver roster and the prospect of IMSA's blue-riband 24-hour race to kick things off. But the signs were there, even before the Roar Before The 24 test got underway 10 days ago, that the team may produce something special. Team owner Mike Shank was as bullish as ever that the team would hit the ground running before either of its cars had turned a wheel. 'We expect to come back on the podium,' he told RACER. 'Maybe we don't win, but there's no reason we shouldn't be challenging for the podium places.' As it turned out, after 24 hours of racing and 781 laps of the Daytona International Speedway, he and his team matched Shank's lofty expectations with a truly strong performance, particularly after the final restart. Tom Blomqvist, the only driver on the lead lap not wearing Porsche Penske overalls by the end, pushed himself and his car to the limit. With time expiring, he caught and passed the No. 6 Porsche -–which was struggling for grip after being on the wrong end of a split tire strategy between the two factory 963s – before setting his sights on the lead car. The Briton couldn't quite find a way to mount a serious challenge to Felipe Nasr in the winning Porsche, but kept it close and piled the pressure on. Blomqvist, though, didn't appear crushed by disappointment in the post-race presser. Instead, knowing he and the team had nothing more to give in the final stint, he was more than satisfied with second. 'In the race, we actually struggled a lot for pace,' he admitted. 'We came into the race relatively confident, but for whatever reason we just struggled a lot to keep our rear tires under us. The No.60 Acura had few answers to the pace of the Porsches over long runs early in the race, but the car came alive in the final stint. James Gilbert/Motorsport Images 'Even from lap one, you already knew it was going to be a tough stint. We kind of struggled, to be honest, for the whole race. The Porsches were extremely strong. We were good, maybe the first few laps and then they would just pull away – especially on the double-stints, they had a lot more pace – and when the traffic came they had such an advantage. We struggled so much for traction and they would just carve through it much better than us. 'But in the last stint, the car was just better. I didn't think I was going to have anything for them, but you never give up, and I think I gave it all I had. To be honest, that was the best we probably could have done today.' His efforts secured a fine podium finish for himself and his teammates Colin Braun, Felix Rosenqvist and Scott Dixon and, remarkably, added to his outstanding personal record of two wins and two second-place finishes in four Rolex 24 starts. On the other side of the Acura MSR pit structure, it was a different story. The No. 93 finished eighth in class – 15th overall and 40 laps down – after suffering a rear suspension failure overnight. However, the result sheet tells an important story in this case. Acura MSR's push to field two cars in 2025 and, therefore, give itself two shots at glory at each race this season appears to have already paid off. 'I think to come away with a second, that close to winning the race and executing well as a whole group, is great, ' Braun said. 'The 93 car had good pace. They had that suspension issue, but they did a super good job, too. 'I think considering all the other GTP teams have been together for a few years here and we've reassembled and added people, I think we have a lot of blue sky, a lot of potential to tidy up a few things here and there and continue to be stronger and stronger. So it was a heck of a first race. 'When we all went to the first test in November when we got the cars, I think if you would have said we'd come here and finish second, we'd all have been signing up for that.' 'We learnt a lot of lessons from this race,' Blomqvist added, 'but to be honest, we're super happy with second because at one point we thought it was going to be a real long day.' Story originally appeared on Racer
Yahoo
26-01-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Nasr, Porsche hold off Blomqvist and Acura for Rolex 24 win
Porsche Penske Motorsports' Felipe Nasr, Nick Tandy and Laurens Vanthoor won the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona, giving Penske and Porsche back-to-back GTP and overall victories in the twice-around-the-classic. The No. 7 Porsche 963 won by 1.335s after completing 780 laps around Daytona. It gave Vanthoor his long-awaited first Rolex 24 win, and gave Tandy an unprecedented 'Grand Slam' of 24-hour endurance race victories with overall wins at Le Mans, Nurburgring, Spa-Francorchamps and now Daytona. Meyer Shank Racing's Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist denied Penske and Porsche a 1-2 finish, driving the No. 60 Acura ARX-06 to second place as Blomqvist overtook the No. 6 Penske Porsche of Mathieu Jaminet, Matt Campbell and Kevin Estre with just five minutes left. The Ford Mustang GT3 got its first victory in global competition as Ford Multimatic Motorsports' Frederic Vervisch, Chris Mies, and Dennis Olsen grabbed a closely fought win in GTD PRO aboard the No. 65 Mustang. They led an all-American GTD PRO podium with the No. 3 Corvette Racing Z06 GT3.R of Antonio Garcia, Alexander Sims and Daniel Juncadella fighting to second place, ahead of the No. 64 Ford of Mike Rockenfeller, Sebastian Priaulx, and Austin Cindric. Tower Motorsports' John Farano, Sebastien Bourdais, Sebastian Alvarez and Job van Uitert ran away with LMP2 in the final 25 minutes, taking the class win after multiple rivals suffered misfortunes. And Canadian team AWA with drivers Orey Fidani, Matthew Bell, Lars Kern, and Marvin Kirchhöfer gave the Corvette Z06 GT3.R its first IMSA GTD victory — and AWA's second Rolex 24 class win in three years. Just past the top of the hour, the No. 24 RLL BMW M Hybrid V8 began to bounce wildly down the backstretch. Dries Vanthoor needed repairs desperately to get to the flag. Seconds later, the No. 45 Wayne Taylor Racing Lamborghini (GTD) of Danny Formal suffered a broken left-rear suspension while running third in class. He pulled off at the exit of Speedway Turn 4 but the full course yellow was deployed once again. The No. 120 Wright Motorsports Porsche and No. 57 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 had to come in for an emergency splash of fuel right away, it compromised them as they needed to come in again and dropped down the GTD order. The GTP leaders took fuel to the end and left in the order they came in with the No. 6 Porsche of Matt Campbell in front. But the LMP2 class turned upside down: ERA Motorsport had just brought the No. 18 ORECA in for a stop just before the yellow, and Paul-Loup Chatin only needed to bring the car in for a splash to jump from fourth to 1st! Fast pit work from Pratt Miller Motorsports put Nico Varrone's beaten No. 4 Corvette up front in GTD PRO — and AF Corse pulled a blinder to get Riccardo Agostini's No.50 Ferrari up to the lead in GTD. And with 38 minutes left, the safety car peeled off and the race came down to its final sprint finish. Vanthoor couldn't make Turn 1 and let Nasr through into second, and suddenly Blomqvist's Acura was back in contention. Dennis Olsen and Laurin Heinrich muscled their way to the front in GTD PRO, and Mattia Drudi likewise took the lead in GTD — before Matt Bell took the AWA Corvette to the lead the next lap! Vanthoor's left-front tire began to rub violently against the bodywork in the Le Mans chicane, and he couldn't fight off Blomqvist, who slipped into third. Eventually, Vanthoor limped the No. 24 back to the pits. BMW's challenge for the overall win at Daytona was done. Olsen moved clear of a hard-fighting GTD PRO pack as Alexander Sims' opportunism allowed him to slip up into second place while battling three-wide with Laurin Heinrich and Fabian Schiller. Heinrich got front-end damage and Rexy's challenge for the win was extinguished — as the reigning GTD PRO champion tumbled down the order quickly. Sims' Corvette wouldn't let Olsen's Ford get away as the two American giants were 1-2 — but with a big slide out of the West Horseshoe, Sims was in the crosshairs of Van der Linde. Nasr and Campbell weren't in the clear with 30 minutes left — Blomqvist had caught the leading Porsche duo, and Meyer Shank Racing was back in the window for the overall win! Simultaneously, Drudi bumped Bell out of the way at Turn 1 to take the GTD lead, Aston Martin ahead of Corvette as neither driver was willing to give ground. With 25 minutes to go, Chatin, the Alpine man, was hit and spun by the No. 52 PR1 Mathiasen Motorsports car of Mathias Beche. Beche received a drive-through penalty to put Bourdais up in the lead again, this time to stay. Nasr cranked the pressure up big time on Campbell, as they approached the leading GTD PRO quartet, Campbell got held up in the traffic, allowing Nasr to get a big run through Speedway Turns 1 and 2. The Brazilian passed Campbell below the double yellow line on the backstretch — an illegal move in the Daytona 500 but here in IMSA it was picture perfect! Nasr grabbed the lead in the No. 7, and while Campbell made another attempt into the tri-oval, he couldn't stay ahead through Turns 1 and 2. BACK AND FORTH NASR AND CAMPBELL GO FOR THE WIN IN THE ROLEX 24! JUST MINUTES REMAIN! 📺 : NBC and Peacock — NBC Sports (@NBCSports) January 26, 2025 As Olsen and Sims ran tail-to-nose in GTD PRO, Bell came back at Drudi, and retook the GTD lead for AWA with 16 minutes to go. With 12 minutes left, another BMW vs. Corvette flashpoint happened as Van der Linde and Sims banged fenders out of the infield and onto the banking. Sims ultimately held the position but Olsen was driving away. Just seconds later, Sims and Van der Linde got backed up into Turn 1, and Nico Varrone hit Van der Linde, spinning the No. 1 BMW out of podium contention. Varrone picked up a drive-through penalty for spinning Van der Linde. GTP, GTD PRO and GTD leaders all overlapped with nine minutes left. Campbell lost out, Blomqvist tried a lunge around the outside of Turn 1 with six minutes to go, but the Anglo-Swede couldn't get a good exit and Campbell held onto second…at least for one lap, before Blomqvist made the move and made it stick for second the next time by. PROVISIONAL RESULTS Full reports to follow. Story originally appeared on Racer
