Honda’s Ohta “Confident” About Daytona Race Chances

Honda’s Kakunoshin Ohta is “confident” that his opportunity to try out the Acura ARX-06 in this weekend’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship test at Daytona International Speedway will lead to a chance to race in next year’s Rolex 24.

Announced late last month, 25-year-old Japanese driver Ohta will get his first chance to try out LMDh machinery in the IMSA-sanctioned test on Nov. 15-17 when he joins the two-car Acura Meyer Shank Racing outfit.

As part of his preparations for the test, he has already made two trips to the U.S. in recent weeks in between his commitments in Japan’s SUPER GT and Super Formula championships, in order to use the simulator at HRC USA’s Indianapolis operations center, and test an Oreca 07 LMP2 car for the first time.

After a positive first experience with the LMP2 car at Putnam Park, Ohta says he is looking forward to the challenge of handling the heavier and more complex ARX-06 in this weekend’s Daytona test.

“First I need to learn if I am well-suited to the car,” Ohta told Sportscar365. “There are a lot of materials to learn, like all the buttons on the steering wheel and how to use the systems, which is really important – even more important than driving fast!

“I did two days in the simulator at Indianapolis at HRC USA, and then I did two days in an LMP2 car at Putnam Park. I did about 300 laps.

“The grip level was more than I expected. The car has a lot of downforce; I was really surprised by it. It’s lighter than the LMDh, and the engineers told me that LMP2 is quicker at the apex, so you need to be able to fit both driving styles.

“The LMP2 car is quite close to the formula car, it all depends on the downforce. The tire wasn’t brilliant, but I loved the car itself.”

Ohta revealed he will be getting further mileage on the HRC USA simulator either side of the Daytona test as he departed for the U.S. fresh off the back of winning both of the final two races of the Super Formula season for Dandelion Racing at Suzuka.

His SUPER GT campaign for Real Racing alongside Koudai Tsukakoshi, which wraps up next month at Suzuka, has been tougher, although he helped deliver the new Civic Type R-GT’s first pole at Fuji Speedway in May and finished third in that race.

“On Monday I will travel to America, I will do two more days in the simulator and then I will travel to Daytona. Then I will be back to Indianapolis for another go in the simulator, and then finally I’ll come back to Japan to race in SUPER GT [at Suzuka].

“It’s a crazy schedule, really tough, but right now I just won the race [in Super Formula], so of course I’m feeling confident.”

Ohta has never previously raced overseas except for a guest French Formula 4 outing in 2019, but speaks near-fluent English, having attended international school, and has always been vocal about his ambitions to race outside of Japan.

He has further honed his English skills this year with selected outings for the Craft-Bamboo Racing squad in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo in Japan’s Super Taikyu series.

While Ohta wouldn’t be drawn on whether his IMSA ambitions go beyond a potential race seat in next January’s Rolex 24, he stated that he hopes his new connections with Meyer Shank could lead to the chance to try out an IndyCar in future.

“It’s still not decided yet if I will race at Daytona, but for now I’m fully focused on that, because I will be testing at that circuit,” he said. “I really want to race in Daytona alongside all the great drivers they have at Acura.

“Also, Meyer Shank Racing is running in IndyCar, which is a series I really want to race in, so I hope it could also lead to a chance to test an IndyCar.”

While Acura and MSR have yet to announce its third drivers for the long-distance IMSA races, Ohta’s availability for the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring and Motul Petit Le Mans is uncertain due to date conflicts with his commitments for Honda in Japan.