Blomqvist stuns in final charge for the lead; sister No. 93 Acura finishes eighth after early suspension failure setback

\Daytona Beach, Fla. (26 January 2025) – Tom Blomqvist charged to a second-place finish in the 63rd Rolex 24 At Daytona, giving Acura Meyer Shank Racing (“Acura MSR”) with Curb Agajanian a sensational start to the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

Blomqvist joined Colin Braun, Scott Dixon and Felix Rosenqvist on the second step of the podium in the No. 60 Acura ARX-06. Starting sixth, the team ran in contention for the entire event, placing in the top four for most of the final 14 hours.

While all four drivers took turns leading the race, the closing hours saw the No. 60 Acura run fourth, working hard to get into podium contention. A caution with two hours to go allowed the team to close the gap to the leaders – although still in fourth. A later caution set up a 38-minute sprint to the finish, and Blomqvist made the most of the opportunity. The Brit took third shortly after the restart, and then set his sights on the top-two competitors. Blomqvist took second with a pass with less than five minutes remaining, and wound up just 1.335-seconds shy at the checkered flag.

Looking to capture the endurance classic in its third-consecutive attempt, the 2022 and 2023 winners led 13 times for a total of 45 laps. Braun led 24-consecutive laps shortly after the midway point, leading the race four times for 30 laps. Dixon paced the field four times for eight laps, Rosenqvist three times for four laps, and Blomqvist twice for three laps.

It was a frustrating day for the sister No. 93 Acura ARX-06 of Nick Yelloly, Renger van der Zande, Kaku Ohta, and Alex Palou.

Yelloly qualified second on Thursday, missing the pole on the final lap by 0.291-seconds. Yelloly ran in podium contention throughout his stint, and was running second when he turned the car over to Ohta. The Japanese star led twice for 19 laps, and was leading the event at his pit stop.

Three-time IndyCar champ Palou was up next, and was running fourth when he slowed exiting the West Horseshoe early in the fifth hour. He radioed the team thinking he had a punctured tire, and brought out the second caution after stopping at the exit of Turn 6.

The car was towed to the pits and then moved to the paddock, where the damage was diagnosed as left-rear suspension failure, which caused the transmission to move and lose drive. After spending an hour in the garage, the car returned to the race, 40 laps down and out of contention.Returning to the race, the No. 93 team ran without drama for the remainder of the event, eventually finishing eighth in GTP.

The IMSA WeatherTech Championship continues with another endurance classic, the 63rd Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring on March 15.

Meyer Shank Racing Team Quotes:

Mike Shank: “I’m just incredibly proud of this group – we’ve been together 10 weeks now. And to pull off this podium from a day that wasn’t going our way, first with the 93 having problems early, but they hung in there and finished 8th which is awesome. And Tom (Blomqvist) just took a car that was just not happy with us and turned it into something that was just epic. I can’t thank every single person from Acura MSR and HRC for staying with it, not giving up and trying to find ways to make it work and get us started on the right foot. I think we have a real shot at working for this championship and we’re looking forward to it.”

Tom Blomqvist: “Fantastic result nonetheless. There were parts of this race where we thought ‘this is going to be a long, long 24 hours.’ We struggled for pace and the Porsches were extremely fast but thankfully the team did a fantastic job to get me in a good position at the end. I drove the wheels off the thing and managed to get one of the Porsches, but the other one was a little but too far ahead – just not enough time really. Who knows what could have happened with a few more laps. I’m obviously extremely happy for everyone, it’s a good start to the season and good points. Huge thanks to everyone at Acura MSR, Acura and HRC. It’s a big joint venture this year with the team, there’s a lot more people involved and there’s a huge amount of effort and resources that’s gone into this program and it’s definitely a good way to start and let’s roll on to Sebring.”

Colin Braun: “Obviously great result, what a way to start the season and start the new rebirth with HRC and Acura MSR. Second is a great result and Daytona is so important and winning is everything so in one way it’s an amazing start and in another it’s like ‘aw man.’ But the guys executed really well. Both Felix and Scott did a great job and Tom killed it at the end. Considering this is kind of the start of this new program, I think it’s going to be a really good season. We have a lot of really good things to build on and continue to refine and improve and I think we are looking forward to keeping it going.”

Scott Dixon: “It was a fun race, there were definitely some difficult parts throughout, not mistake free which is never great. But Acura, Honda and MSR did everything strategy-wise that we could – but we just had a bit too much tire degradation and that definitely made it a tough race, especially when we had to double stint [the tires] early. Tom did a great job at the end. I think that was the best result that we could have had, maybe if we had a little longer we would have had a better shot.”

Felix Rosenqvist: “Pretty good ending for the 60 car. It’s always a bit bitter sweet in these big events with a second place. But honestly, with the way things looked for a while we’ll definitely take it. For these guys who are going to continue running the championship, it’s good points in the bag. Tom did a demon stint in the end, that was incredible to watch, my heart was pounding. Really proud of all the guys, the teammates, the mechanics, crew and engineers that was a hell of an effort.”:

Nick Yelloly: “For the 93 car, obviously we had our technical issue with the rear suspension failure early on unfortunately. We had really good pace and qualified P2 and were able to stay there quite comfortably in the first couple of stints. Great effort from the team to get the car back out, albeit 40 laps down. From there it was just seeing what we could do to help the 60 car and get up as far to the front as we could. Great effort from Acura MSR and HRC and we have plenty more to come for the rest of the season.”

Renger van der Zande: “I’m super happy to see that the 60 car race all the way to P2, I think it was a team effort. It’s a bitter feeling to have ended the race so early. But at the same time we’re the crew that got the car out the fastest which means we got the most points from the people that had the same problem. We need to investigate what happened and why it [suspension] broke, but apart from that we learned a lot. We learned how we run this car, how we run this team. I think we can be proud of what today brought, but not the result that we wanted.”

Kaku Ohta: “It was a huge honor to be a part of Acura Meyer Shank Racing and getting to race in the Rolex 24. I did a lot of laps, maybe six stints and now I am so tired. I felt like I drove a really clean race and I’m happy about that. I even got to lead my first time out and that was really special. I know the car was fast and I wanted to win the race, of course, but this race is tough sometimes and unfortunately our car broke. But I’m already looking forward to coming back and joining the team at Watkins Glen and I’m so thankful to MSR and to HRC for this opportunity.”

Alex Palou: “Sad day for the 93 car having a mechanical failure so early on, especially with it not being our fault. Sometimes it’s a team mistake or driver mistake, so you know what you could have done differently, but this time it was just a failure and we couldn’t have done anything differently. It’s unfortunate, but happy at the same time we got running again. We got a lot of laps in for myself and for the team and that’s going to help us be a bit stronger in Sebring. And obviously I’m happy to see how Tom was fighting at the end and almost getting that win. It makes us hungry and I’m looking forward to the next couple of races.”