Acura has announced two new teams, which will continue running their DPi programme in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2021 and beyond.
The decision fell on Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing.
It’s certainly to no surprise, that MSR will be one of the teams, who will take over the programme, following Acura not opting to extend with Team Penske. MSR has had Acura and Honda connections throughout the last few years and was running at Le Mans 2016 with an LMP2 car, in addition to their IMSA programme in 2015 and 2016.
They started running in the GTD category in 2017 with two NSX GT3 cars, with one of the cars being run under the Heinricher Racing banner lately. It’s not yet announced, if their GTD programme will continue, or if their full focus will switch to the DPi programme.
There has been a link between General Motors and Wayne Taylor Racing through many years, but the team owner himself has actually raced Acura cars previously. They won the Grand-Am Championship in 2005 and 2013, before winning the IMSA title in 2017 with brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor. That combination was split up right after that championship, with Ricky going to Acura Team Penske. Jordan has moved to Corvette Racing now – but it’s not impossible, that Ricky might return to the family team now. He does have a lot of knowledge with the ARX-05 car, that the team could use.
However, there has been no drivers announced for neither Wayne Taylor Racing nor Meyer Shank Racing.
The next round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship will run this weekend at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, which is the 4th last round for the DPi cars in 2020.