Acura Drivers Downplay Chances, Claim Porsche “Ones to Beat”

Acura drivers Renger van der Zande and Tom Blomqvist have downplayed the brand’s chances of challenging for victory in this weekend’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, instead citing Porsche as the favorite for a third successive win.

Both van der Zande and Blomqvist made the remarks immediately prior to Thursday’s qualifying session, in which the two Meyer Shank Racing-run Acura ARX-06s qualified second and fifth for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship curtain-raiser.

Van der Zande had placed the No. 93 car he shares with Nick Yelloly, Alex Palou and Kaku Ohta on the front row, 0.102 seconds behind pole-sitter Jack Aitken aboard the No. 31 Action Racing Express Cadillac, but the car was elevated to pole position when the AXR machine was moved to the rear of the 11-car GTP field.

Blomqvist and his co-drivers in the sister No. 60 machine he shares with Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and AJ Allmendinger, move up from fifth to fourth.

However, it was the two Penske-run Porsche 963s that will start third and fifth that stood out to Blomqvist on the basis of their long runs leading up to qualifying.

“I think Porsche looks extremely quick,” Blomqvist told Sportscar365. “They look so good. 

“We have always been good in qualifying trim. We still need to work a bit on our race pace for sure, and make sure the tires last. We’ve been working hard on that.

“Qualifying is one thing but the last two years Porsche wasn’t on pole but they won the race. They usually come on strong in the race, and they already look mega.

“They are the ones to beat on race pace. But behind that I think it is close.”

Van der Zande also highlighted the Action Express Cadillac that Aitken put on pole as another of the cars that he feels has an advantage over the Acuras in race trim.

“The Porsches will be strong, and the No. 31 Cadillac also looks strong,” said van der Zande. “For some reason they seem to have an advantage over the Wayne Taylor ones. 

“Then it might be us just behind. I don’t think we have a chance to win. But we’ll see.”

Acura arrives at this year’s Rolex 24 with a freshly updated ARX-06 after playing its first Evo joker to make a minor update to the car’s aerodynamic package, as it bids to return to the top step of the podium since 2023 – the first race of the GTP era.

When asked to compare the build-up to that year’s race to this year’s, which sees a similar reset with four of the five GTP manufacturers having updated their cars, Blomqvist highlighted the progress that Porsche has made in the last three years.

“In 2023 we were quite dominant and you could already see that from practice,” said Blomqvist. “We rolled off the track with a better track with everyone else. 

“We know we’re always in the mix here. We are quite efficient [aerodynamically], so we are generally ok on the straights.

“Porsche have constantly developed and developed over the years, but I think when they started [with the 963] they weren’t so strong. 

“I think we did the best job with the initial package, but we haven’t done a lot of changes since then, just because our baseline was so strong.”

However, Blomqvist believes the fact that MSR is going into its second campaign with Acura following its one-year hiatus in 2024 should come as a boost to its chances.

“It feels like a big improvement,” he said. “Last year was the first year with a lot of new faces in the team, and HRC taking on the commitment of running a car by themselves. 

“Just having all that experience means everyone is more comfortable and relaxed. It makes everything a bit easier.”

Van der Zande also expressed confidence of having a stronger season overall sharing the HRC US-engineered No. 93 car full-time with Yelloly even if he doesn’t regard Acura as being among the candidates for victory at Daytona.

“If you look at the engineering team, we have a lot of inexperienced guys,” said van der Zande. “On our car we have a guy [Stefano Pulcini] who never ran a car before last year, so the experience in one year of working with me and Nick makes a big difference. 

“The young guys are gelling more with the team, so if we don’t make any rookie mistakes, we should be in better shape than we were last year. It makes a big difference.

“The resources are there, the team is preparing more than they have ever done, more than I have ever seen in sports car racing, and now it’s about execution.”