Podium Finish for Acura at Watkins Glen
Watkins Glen InternationalMeyer Shank Racing brings their Acura ARX-06 home third at Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen
It was a third-place finish for Acura in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, with Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun finishing on the podium, after challenging for the win, today at Watkins Glen International.
In the premier GTP division for hybrid prototypes, Blomqvist and Braun had their #60 MSR Acura ARX-06 at the front of the field three separate times, as all four competing manufacturers led portions of the endurance contest.
Following the last round of scheduled pit stops, Blomqvist emerged in fourth place, but any final efforts at securing the second victory of the season for Acura and Meyer Shank Racing ended when the caution flag flew with less than five minutes remaining for a GTD crash.
The race ended behind the safety car, with the #60 taking the checkers in fourth place. However, the winning Penske Motorsport entry was found to have a non-compliant skid block in post-race technical inspection, moving the team to ninth and last in GTP; and the #60 MSR Acura to third in the official results.
After starting third, the #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06 was forced to make an early, unscheduled pit stop to replace a left front tire while starting driver Louis Deletraz was still at the wheel. Just past the two-hour, 30-minute mark, a loose wheel forced second driver Filipe Albuquerque to slow, and then pit as the wheel came off prior to pitting. Finally, closing driver Ricky Taylor’s recovery attempts came to a close due to a brake issue and the car was retired with 40 minutes remaining.
“In the end, third was a good result for us. We needed a good, solid finish and I’m really proud of everyone at MSR, Acura and HPD. I think everyone did a great job. We had good race pace. Everyone is working hard and I’m proud of everyone’s efforts over the entire week. This [six hour] is not an easy race. It’s definitely tough on the crew and the drivers and strategy-wise. Man, there’s so many ways you can build out this race. I feel we were in contention and in position to battle at the front. If we keep it up things will swing our way."
“Ahh, what a shame. With all the little issues we had, I don’t think it was our day. What is annoying for us is the car was very fast, I mean, really, really fast. But first we had an issue with a wheel that came loose, and that was strange. Normally, when a wheel comes loose, it does it just after you leave the pits, but this time it was after two-thirds of a stint. And it came loose at the worse possible time, just as approached pit entrance. I tried to go into the pits, but nearly lost it and had to do a long slow lap. Then Ricky [Taylor] tried to recover, and we had brake issues. In fairness, it’s the first time we’ve had a problem like this in a race. We knew we would have [mechanical issues in a race] at some point, but it’s just a shame to have happened when we were so fast.”
