Acura admits it lacked pace to “attack” in Sebring 12 Hours

Acura drivers admit that the ARX-06 lacked the pack and the top speed to “attack” the frontrunners in Saturday’s Sebring 12 Hours.

Acura put on a lacklustre performance in the second round of the IMSA SportsCar Championship, with its two Meyer Shank-entered factory cars never really looking like serious contenders for victory.

Some late progress saw the HRC-engineered #93 LMDh driven by Nick Yelloly, Renger van der Zande and Alex Palou finish third, five seconds down on the winning Porsche 963.

The sister #60 entry took the chequered flag five laps down in 10th after Tom Blomqvist was involved in a pitlane collision with the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Phillip Eng.

These results were a far cry from its previous showing at Sebring just 12 months ago, when it won the race outright with its previous team partner Wayne Taylor Racing.

Given the circumstances, van der Zande said even third-place felt like victory to the Acura crew, but conceded that the ARX-06 lacked the speed to take the fight to Porsche.

"I don't want to say it feels like a victory, but it feels like a victory,” the Dutch driver said.

“It was one of those races where we didn't have the pace or the power to really attack at all. But I think defensively we made it to the podium.

“The Meyer Shank and Acura guys all together did an amazing job on strategy and that's why we are on the podium. We can be very proud of that and very excited to build from here."

IndyCar star Palou, who joined full-season drivers Yelloly and Renger van der Zande at Sebring, hailed Acura for pulling off a podium despite “struggling a lot on pace” during the race.

"Great day! I'm super happy. It's not a win, but number three is still good!,” he said.

“It's my first podium with the Acura MSR team, and the first podium for me in GTP. It's a good result for the #93. We were looking good in Daytona, but we got unlucky there.

“We had some struggles here as well throughout the day, at some point we were struggling a lot on pace, but everybody at HRC and MSR did a great job working on the car and making sure we were there at the end to fight for the podium.

“I think it's a great result, it feels like a win. I'll be for sure cheering for these guys while I'm doing my IndyCar races, and I can't wait for the next endurance race."

Colin Braun enjoyed a brief stint at the front in the #60 Acura just after the halfway point of the race, but he was soon overtaken by the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Frederik Vesti. He then quickly dropped outside of podium positions.

More drama struck the #60 Acura at the end of hour nine when Braun’s teammate Blomqvist made contact with Eng’s BMW in a crowded pitlane as they exited their respective pit boxes.

The Acura suffered heavy damage to its bodywork and suspension and was later handed a drive-through penalty for a pitlane violation, leaving it several laps off the lead.

Explaining the collision from his point of view, Blomqvist said: “We had issues getting out of pit lane and one car wasn't properly in the fast lane and I had to maneuver around another car and it was just too tight and I broke the front left [suspension].

“I'm obviously very disappointed for the guys and I think we could have had both cars fighting for third and fourth.

"I've never had a good result here and unfortunately this year was the same.”