Yahoo Autos Meyer Shank confirms IMSA GTP return with Acura in 2025
Meyer Shank Racing is returning to IMSA’s WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2025 with a resumption of its factory hybrid GTP program with Acura and Honda Racing Corporation US.
The new multi-year deal also adds a second Acura ARX-06 to its stable. As revealed by RACER in May, the Ohio-based MSR emerged as a surprising top candidate to take the Acura program from Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti after losing its single-car factory deal to WTRA for 2024.
With its contract with WTRAndretti up at the end of the year, ongoing talks with multiple teams took place, and with WTRAndretti and Cadillac having agreed to reunite in 2025, which remains unconfirmed, Acura’s two-car ARX-06 effort needed a new home. And with MSR’s championship-winning IMSA DPi run for Acura in 2022 and its front-running efforts in 2023 amid its tire-pressure cheating scandal at Daytona, the Japanese brand had a turnkey, title-contending solution at its disposal with MSR.
“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 MSR co-owner Mike 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.”
Along with co-owner Jim Meyer, Shank built MSR into an IMSA powerhouse as the team delivered a pair of GTD championships for Acura in the GTD class and added a prototype title in 2022. The relationship with Acura/HRC US will expand under the new agreement as MSR will run both cars on behalf of the company and welcome a race engineering team from the brand to lead one of the ARX-06s.
“Running our own GTP car is the next, exciting step for our associates at HRC US,” said HRC US president David Salters. “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 (to) race engineer our own car: buckle-up HRC boys and girls!”
No drivers were mentioned in the announcement, but RACER understands MSR’s effective duo of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist will be reunited in one car. Candidates for the second car can be found throughout the GTP paddock as the Cadillac Racing duo of Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande are in search of new opportunities once their Chip Ganassi Racing Cadillac program heads to WTRA at the end of the season.
Action Express Racing’s Pipo Derani is a new free agent, and at least one driver from Porsche Penske Motorsport is expected to be on the move after the October 12 finale at Motul Petit Le Mans.
WTRAndretti team principal Wayne Taylor expressed his gratitude for the time spent representing Acura.
“We have had a successful run with HRC and Acura these past four years,” he said. “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.”
