Season 3 for the IMSA GTP class and Acura’s handsome, and rapid, ARX-06 arrived with significant changes, not for the car, but for the way in which the pair of Acuras were operated.
The rapid-fire off-season switch in the IMSA paddock saw Wayne Taylor Racing taking over the Cadillacs previously operated by Ganassi, and the Acura effort welcomed prodigal son Meyer Shank Racing back into the fold after a season away.
This, was after a controversial start to the first season of the class that saw MSR take the win at the Rolex 24 Hours, only to be stripped of points post-race after a tyre pressure data feed ‘fix’ was brought to IMSA’s attention by HPD.
That led, at least in part, to MSR being out of the programme in 2024, with both cars operated by WTR for a disappointing campaign that saw two wins – one car apiece, including a victory at Sebring – but a season result that saw the pair finish fifth and sixth, below the PPM Porsches and the two full-season Cadillacs.
December 2023 meanwhile, had already seen Honda Performance Development reinvented as HRC US – Honda Racing Corporation USA – and that pitch meant much more than just a change of three-letter acronym.
With David Salters still at the helm in the USA, Honda, and HRC US are growing in motorsport stature and ambition. The global HRC operations collaborate on projects and the growth in capabilities of their facilities and personnel.
And that’s where one of the key changes in 2025 comes in, as HRC USA President David Salters opined to the DSC Editor during Rolex 24 week:
“Where we are now, to have this race car and a reasonable budget started probably four years ago.
“Four years ago, I sat with my leaders and we said, ‘Okay, what’s our next challenge here, boys and girls?’ Because we’re a racing company, we’re very lucky to be Honda. Racing is pretty much in the middle of it all, and that’s down to Mr Honda and his vision and enthusiasm.
“So for me, it’s a privilege. It’s a real racing company. We challenge ourselves to go racing. Four years ago, we sat there and said, what’s our next challenge? We do powertrains. We engineer racing cars. We have driver-in-the-loop simulators. We go to wind tunnels. We do everything, let’s say on the skin, or under the skin.
“So the reason, for example, that this car looks like this is because of our aerodynamics guys working with ORECA.
“The next challenge was running our own cars and that’s what we are doing in 2025. So why do you want to inflict that on yourself?
“Well, why wouldn’t you? That’s the next challenge for our boys and girls, to run our own car at a pinnacle level against some pretty good opposition.
“So four years ago, we said we’re going to run our own car too.
“And this (IMSA) was the obvious place because this is the biggest challenge, particularly in endurance racing. You’re trying to do 10 grand prix in a row without a mistake. So we said, let’s take the big challenge and we started to work on how we would make our own race team.
“But, most importantly, my prime responsibility is to give our boys and girls opportunities, and this was a way to further our collective opportunities and give the boys and girls progress. So our race engineer was in the Driver in the Loop (DIL), our strategist was in the DIL. They’ve not done this before. One had been a performance engineer. The other one does iRacing all the time, normal stuff.
“So the idea was, how could we challenge ourselves more? How could we give opportunities for our boys and girls, which is a very Honda thing. And then the other thing is, you want to control a bit more of your own destiny. So rather than moan about it, do something about it. So that’s why we’ve ended up here.
There’s another major change this year though, with a switch back to Meyer Shank Racing, after a controversial end to their IMSA relationship in 2023.
“So far as what happened (with MSR). Obviously, unfortunate things happened, not acceptable. There were consequences for those. But then everyone gets a chance. We all get one. All of us are going to make mistakes, so you get one chance.
“We have a very good relationship with Mike (Shank). That goes back, I suspect, about 10 years (in fact exactly 10 years, when Shank first ran a Ligier JS P2 with the HPD engine!). I guess all relationships over 10 years have a bump in the road.
“But actually the whole point is, how do we run our own car? How do we challenge ourselves? How do we grow? How do we put more urgency into our organization?
“I was on a race team for nine years, a red one, not bad! (David was head of engine development for the Ferrari Formula 1 programme from 2006-2015), and I know that we’re missing a few bits and bobs in terms of urgency, because if you’re the OEM and you’re supplying powertrains and stuff. It’s awesome, but you miss that last little bit of urgency.
“Formula One could be a bit of a different thing, because you’re very, very integrated, but in this environment, I wanted to also inject a little bit more urgency and ownership and pride. It’s our car. I wanted to inject that into the message, into what we were doing.”
All of this sounds to me like the world’s best employee incentive scheme?
“That’s the other thing. It’s the pride. We’re all rabbits in the headlights right now, to be honest with you, because it’s not easy and we’re fighting people that have been doing this for 20 years, globally, 40 years or whatever. But it is massively motivating, and that’s why we do it. That’s why you go racing, to challenge yourself.
You mentioned Sochiro Honda and his known passion for motorsports. How closely are the current bosses watching this programme?
“As of this afternoon, Watanabe San will be here, there’s another gentleman here called Takishi San, who’s the Technical Director for F1 and also the head of Honda’s R&D, and you probably know ‘Kaku’ – Ohta San is now sat in the car (Honda factory Super GT driver Kakunoshin Ohta).
“So there’s a lot of interest. The car looks cool and it sounds and we sent the car on holiday over Christmas, it was sat in Tokyo, HQ and everyone loved it. So I think we’re okay!”
So, what next?
“What next? Oh, well, it’s actually to see if we can do it!
“I’m waxing lyrical here. It’s all easy to talk about. The thing with racing, there are three steps, and the one at the top is bigger than the other ones, and the cup is bigger. And if you didn’t get to stand on the top or get the big cup, you are inferior.
“It becomes very obvious, very quickly, whether you’ve done the job or not, and if you’ve not, you’ve got to regroup and do better.
“So what next is actually building a team. Because we’ve only been at this for eight weeks. The way you succeed in this game is a team of people working together, going in the right direction.
Is this year that different?
“It is because we’ve, we’ve not run a car before. The #93 car, everyone on that pit stand, has different levels of experience, but as a collective group, we’ve not done it before. There are people who’ve run cars, but not as a collective group.
“The lovely thing about the MSR organization is that you’ve got a team of racers. We can all work together with mutual respect, everyone’s getting on it. But they’ve got some new people, too – so the first thing is building the team.
“So we’ve got to build the team. We’ve got to learn what we don’t know, and then we know what the goal is. “What’s next” is actually just making sure that we can build a team, run our cars properly and hopefully start to deliver.”
The team made a very good start at Daytona, with the #60 car finishing a fighting second place to the winning Penske Porche. The #93 meanwhile, showed that the HRC USA crew had real drive, bringing the car home, albeit 40 laps down after a suspension breakage in the fifth hour.
Not the result that HRC wanted on its debut, but after a race that had a little bit of everything, the staff returned to base with lessons learned and much to build upon ahead of the next challenge at Sebring.
So far so good for the start of the 2025 season, but what about the future for the programme, in IMSA – and beyond? That’s all covered in Part 2 later today on DSC…
