Acura’s new Le Mans racer on track for the first time

The Acura ARX-06 LMDh prototype, which will race in IMSA’s GTP category from 2023, spent two days testing at Paul Ricard following an initial shakedown run at the same circuit the week previously. Both days included night time running, as the car is set to make its competitive debut at the Daytona 24 Hours in January.

Driving duties were split, going to Matt McMurry and Ricky Taylor. McMurry is a Honda Performance Development software engineer who’s as good on a laptop and he is behind the wheel, having competed at Le Mans three times and won the IMSA GTD Drivers’ Championship in 2020 with Meyer Shank Racing. Taylor, meanwhile, is another HPD development driver and a man who’s claimed two IMSA championships and one Rolex Daytona 24 win for Acura, and has raced at Le Mans eight times.

The ARX-06’s design has been completed by the Acura Design Studio in California and HPD, the engine is strictly an HPD affair, to be mated with a standardised IMSA hybrid system, while the chassis comes from Oreca’s upcoming next-gen LMP2 car. Both Meyer Shank Racing and Wayne Taylor Racing, which ran the 06’s predecessor for the second part of its life, will compete with the LMDh machine in 2023.

"Of course, it is still early days,” said HPD president and technical director David Salters. “But I would have to say we're quite pleased with the results of both the initial shake-down runs last week at Paul Ricard; followed by two days this weekend.

“Everyone on our team from ORECA, HPD, the Wayne Taylor and Meyer Shank organisations – worked together extraordinarily well in preparing for and conducting these initial runs. Now the truly hard work begins!”