No. 93 Acura finishes fifth while No. 60 Acura finishes 11th
Monterey. Calif. (11 May 2025) – Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian (Acura MSR) battled to a fifth-place finish for Nick Yelloly and Renger van der Zande in Sunday’s TireRack.com Monterey SportsCar Championship at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
The two-hour, 40-minute race – Round 4 of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship – ran without the benefit of a caution flag, with the entire 36-car field running at the finish.
Yelloly started eighth in the No. 93 Acura ARX-06 but quickly moved up to fifth, holding that position throughout much of his opening stint. He took fourth during the opening round of pit stops near the one-hour mark, turning the Acura over to van der Zande in eighth position.
van der Zande managed to run as high as second during green-flag pit stops, but fell to fifth on his final pit stop with 59 minutes remaining and held it to the checkered flag.
It was a tough day for the sister No. 60 Acura ARX-06. Tom Blomqvist qualified fifth and worked his way up to third when he pitted with one hour, 40-minutes remaining. Colin Braun took over and fell to sixth after a slight delay on his pit stop. At the midway point, he was bumped, causing left-rear bodywork damage and a tire rub. Braun was given a mechanical black flag, and lost two laps as the team replaced the wing. A penalty on the stop resulted in another trip to pit lane, putting him three laps down. That disadvantage proved costly in a race without a caution nor attrition, leading to an 11th-place finish.
Next up for Acura MSR in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship will be the Detroit Grand Prix on May 31, a 100-mile sprint on the streets of downtown Detroit. The race will be streamed live on Peacock and broadcast on SiriusXM channel 206 beginning at 3:30 p.m. ET.
Meyer Shank Racing Driver Quotes:
Renger van der Zande: “I’m really proud of the team and I think we maximized our package. We did a fews days in the simulator to prepare which helped us find some things out that made the car better. We also had two days of testing here. I think this is the position that we finished and we couldn’t do much better than that.”
Nick Yelloly: “I think with fifth place we maximized everything that we could. It’s clear that we don’t have the pace that we need at the moment to fight with the other manufacturers, but as a team we can be super happy that we are performing and executing well. We always can improve from a car balance point of view – we have a test in a few weeks and hopefully we can get the Acura sorted even more and be a bit closer to them in the next event in Detroit. From memory Acura won it last year so I think we should have a good base to roll out fast and then try and get back on that podium.”
Tom Blomqvist: “Very disappointing result for us. We had a good first stint and we were running third and then it all just kind of fell to pieces for us. It’s a shame because it would have been nice to stay running at the front and have a good result today. We just didn’t have the pace regardless. The two Porsches are just in a league of their own. We’ll leave this weekend behind us and learn from the mistakes and try to improve.”
Colin Braun: “It was a disappointing race but Tom did a good job early on. Then we had a bit of a long stop which put me out ahead of a few guys. They were on warm tires and I was on cold tires, so I got passed a bit there. And then one of the Wayne Taylor cars had a bit of a run and then got just barely on the inside and hit the left rear tire down the corkscrew. We had a puncture and that was pretty much our race over. It looked like we were in a good spot and then unfortunately it all unraveled.”