Honda Racing Corporation USA has confirmed that former series champions Meyer Shank Racing will return to its Acura program for the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship.
It comes a year after the team lost its deal to run a factory-supported Acura ARX-06 when it was discovered that it had manipulated tire data during the 2023 Daytona 24 Hours – a race that it won. Later that season, it also triumphed legally in events at Mosport and Road Atlanta’s Petit Le Mans.
HRC revealed that part of its multi-year commitment to the project includes it taking on a ‘larger operational role’. Its own staff will race engineer one of its two GTP entries, while MSR will field the second Acura ARX-06.
“Running our own GTP car is the next, exciting step for our associates at HRC US,” said David Salters, HRC USA’s president. “We race to develop our people and technology and we are thrilled to be partnering with MSR to race our ARX-06 against some of the world’s best sportscar teams.
“This is why the next logical step for us is race engineer our own car.”
Mike Shank, who co-owns the team with former business executive Jim Meyer, said he was “grateful” to rejoin the Acura fold. MSR also fields two Honda-powered cars in the IndyCar Series.
“First, on behalf of everyone at Meyer Shank Racing, I want to express our gratitude to David Salters and everyone at HRC and Acura for giving us this opportunity,” said Shank.
“We are supremely grateful to have earned this new opportunity and everyone on the team is looking forward to day one in our new relationship with Acura, and the new role we’ll be playing in HRC US’s IMSA program.”
MSR will prepare and maintain both Acuras from its facilities located in Etna, Ohio. It has previously campaigned several successful Acura race cars including NSX GT3, ARX-05 DPi and ARX-06 GTP machines, racking up race wins and championships in IMSA before the split at the end of the 2023 season.
Salters thanked the outgoing Acura GTP team Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti, which now seems certain to land the factory-supported Cadillac program in 2025. Together with Acura, WTR has won two races this season, the Sebring 12 Hours and Detroit street sprint.
“I would like to sincerely thank Wayne Taylor, the WTR with Andretti team and its talented drivers,” said Salters. “We have shared some brilliant and successful times together; and we look forward to finishing 2024 with more top-level racing.”
Wayne Taylor responded with a statement: “We have had a successful run with HRC and Acura these past four years. When it came to renewal, we listened and took their future plans into serious consideration, but in the end, felt we needed to go in a different direction moving forward.
“With three key races left in the season, our plan is to continue to focus on winning more podiums and races for Acura and to end the year strong We are looking forward to announcing our plans for 2025 in the very near future.”
Focus will now turn to the driver lineups for each program, with Tom Blomqvist likely to spearhead MSR’s return following being dropped from its IndyCar lineup after this year’s Indianapolis 500.
