{"id":8599,"date":"2025-09-21T13:49:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:49:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=8599"},"modified":"2025-09-22T13:50:48","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T17:50:48","slug":"acura-msr-takes-hard-fought-podium-finish-at-indianapolis-motor-speedway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2025\/09\/21\/acura-msr-takes-hard-fought-podium-finish-at-indianapolis-motor-speedway\/","title":{"rendered":"Acura MSR Takes Hard-Fought Podium Finish at Indianapolis Motor Speedway"},"content":{"rendered":"

Late caution spoils fuel-saving strategy in Battle on the Bricks<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.\u00a0(21 September\u00a02025) –\u00a0Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian\u00a0(\u201cAcura MSR\u201d) took a hard-fought podium finish in Sunday\u2019s TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.<\/p>\n

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The No. 60 Acura MSR of Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun saw its fuel-saving strategy go for naught when an incident with 8:30 remaining led to a two-lap sprint to the finish, with Blomqvist coming home third after starting ninth.<\/p>\n

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The No. 93 Acura MSR of Nick Yelloly, Renger van der Zande and Kakunoshin \u201cKaku\u201d Ohta finished fifth, putting the team\u2019s two full-season drivers second in the Michelin Endurance Cup championship entering the finale, 195 points in arrears.<\/p>\n

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Acura MSR bounced back from a challenging qualifying session, with Yelloly starting fifth while Blomqvist started from tenth. Yelloly was up to second by the end of the opening lap, with the team running in the top four for much of the event.<\/p>\n

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The team\u2019s superior fuel mileage came to the fore during the second hour, when both starting drivers took turns in the lead during the first round of green flag pit stops. At halfway, both Acuras scored bonus points for the Michelin Endurance Cup, with Ohta second in the No. 93 and Braun third in the No. 60 \u2013 with both of the team cars running in podium position for much of the second half of the race.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Both cars looked to benefit from their fuel and energy save\u00a0in the final two hours. Blomqvist pitted from the lead just before a yellow was released\u00a0with 1:18 remaining, coming out in third. van der Zande pitted two laps later, falling to eighth, but was ready to race the distance. Both cars were in the top five as time was running out \u2013 with more energy than their competitors \u2013 but the late cation period\u00a0allowed their rivals to finish without pitting during the hectic two-lap sprint to the checkered flag.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Yelloly and van der Zande currently sit second in the provisional IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup Championship while Braun and Blomqvist sit third the IMEC standings. The results at IMS also closed the gap in the manufacturer championship, with Acura just seven points behind Porsche with one round to go.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The IMSA campaign comes to a close with the 10-hour Motul Petit LeMans, set for Saturday Oct. 11 at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta.<\/p>\n

Meyer Shank Racing Team Quotes:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Tom Blomqvist:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cObviously solid result for the guys especially after starting last. It\u2019s a shame we couldn\u2019t win the race. We had a bit of luck fall our way today. Int the end our luck wasn\u2019t going to keep going. There was a yellow at the end that saved the two cars ahead – it added a bit of an energy buffer. I had to settle for third. Very happy, it\u2019s still a great result and good for the manufacturer\u2019s championship.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Colin Braun:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cIn the end it was a great result. The guys did a great job on the strategy today. They nailed it two times to catapult us up the field. Great job by everyone at Acura MSR and HRC. I think we closed the gap on the manufacturer championship also. Really happy with the P3 result and we\u2019ll take this to Petit and close out the season on a high note.\u201d<\/p>\n

Renger van der Zande:<\/strong>\u00a0\u201cI think we can be happy. The mission was to stay in front of the Porsche and close the gap in the manufacturer championship, which we did. It\u2019s never nice to sacrifice a good result in the race when you could have gotten more out of it. I think we nailed it at the end with the fuel save and strategy. Nick at the start was amazing, Kaku was amazing as well. And I was able to get some positions back too. We have a lot to improve on. Now we go to Petit Le Mans and are ready for a good battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nick Yelloly:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cP5, so we finished where we started. I actually had a lot of fun out there. The start was a lot of fun, we went from fifth to second and we felt like we were having a very good race. A little bittersweet as we were running at the front of the field for the majority of the race but the main thing is that we closed the manufacturer championship down to, from my understanding, seven points. And the 60 car got another podium; another great result for the team and HRC. Onwards to Road Atlanta where I feel like if we work together as we have been, we should be in a good position.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kakunoshin Ohta<\/strong>: \u201cOur main target for this race was to finish in\u00a0front of the Porsches as a team to help us in the manufacturer championship. We had a chance to win the race and the last full course yellow really hurt us, which was similar to the position we were in at Watkins Glen. But this is IMSA and sometimes we win and sometimes we don\u2019t. Our execution in the race was almost perfect and I felt like my driving was much better than it was at Watkins Glen. I made some overtakes and my pace was OK. Our team did a great job with the car and\u00a0Nick and Renger did a great job in the race, so I am happy with that.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Late caution spoils fuel-saving strategy in Battle on the Bricks   INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.\u00a0(21 September\u00a02025) –\u00a0Acura Meyer Shank Racing with Curb-Agajanian\u00a0(\u201cAcura MSR\u201d) took a hard-fought podium finish [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8600,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-meyer-shank-racing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8599"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8601,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8599\/revisions\/8601"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}