Yelloly: HRC-Engineered No. 93 Entry is Salters’ Lasting Legacy

Photo: Mike Levitt/IMSA

Nick Yelloly said David Salters’ bold move to have Honda Racing Corporation USA engineers run the No. 93 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 should be one of his lasting legacies.

It was announced last week that the HRC US President would depart the company for new job in the tech startup sector, with company vice president Kelvin Fu taking over the role, effective yesterday.

Salters, who joined the then-named Honda Performance Development in 2015 as a chief engineer after spells in Formula 1 with both Ferrari and Mercedes-Benz, became HPD President in 2020 and was instrumental in nearly all facets of the Acura ARX-06 LMDh program.

However, Yelloly, who joined the Acura fold in 2025 from BMW, remembers the first season where he and co-driver Renger van der Zande worked with a group of young HRC US engineers who were essentially all rookies.

“For me, the thing that would stand out the most is taking our rookie team in terms of engineering crew on the 93 car,” he said.

“My engineer was brand new to race engineering; he may have been a performance engineer before.

“Our performance guys had never really been to the tracks that much, so they were all brand new tire engineers, strategy side engineers. The engineering crew was completely new and that had not been done before.

“So to come from where we started at the end of 2024 with our first test in November and be able to then go on and have a first year as a learning year and actually now be challenging week in, week out, like we have been this year, I think it’s a credit to how he put the whole team together, and also how much work he did.

“He was on the phone to me every other day, when we first started in particular to ask how I thought the program had been structured, and if we needed to make changes.

“He was at every single test, and still is, so he lives and breathes it.

“Credit to him for making that happen for everyone on the HRC side, and of course, all the engineers for getting that opportunity.”

Yelloly revealed that Salters was his first point of contact with the manufacturer when he decided to make the move away from BMW in the second half of 2024.

“David is a fellow Brit, so we got on very well from the get-go,” he said. “I contacted him directly when I had made my decision in wanting to move away from BMW and we had some very straightforward, good chats.

“Everything he said, he has done, above and beyond to be honest. So, it was a pleasure driving for him. I spoke with him briefly yesterday, and said thanks again for the opportunity, of course.”

While Fu takes the helm of HRC US, it will only be for a short period on the GTP front, as Acura bows out of WeatherTech Championship competition following next month’s season-ending Motul Petit Le Mans.

“Kelvin, we know very well already,” said Yelloly. “He tends to come to a fair amount of the IMSA races, and maybe he’s a bit more in the background than David, but we know each other already very well, and he’s very, very clever and very good with dealing with the whole team.

“So very much like David, it will be quite a seamless transition, I’m sure, for everyone on the IMSA side, and also on the IndyCar side when he takes over in the coming weeks.

“It won’t change much; just the face. We’ll miss David, of course, for the last couple of rounds, but Kelvin is a more than worthy replacement.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John