Acura Teams Fight to the Finish at Sebring
Sebring International RacewayAs so often happens in IMSA WeatherTech SportCar Championship racing, the 71st Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring all came down to the final hour of the classic endurance race. Unfortunately, a mechanical issue and late-race contact while contesting for the win resulted in disappointment for Acura.
As so often happens in IMSA WeatherTech SportCar Championship racing, the 71st Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring all came down to the final hour of the classic endurance race. Unfortunately, a mechanical issue and late-race contact while contesting for the win resulted in disappointment for Acura, its teams and drivers.
Both cars led multiple times and appeared poised to contend for the victory throughout the afternoon and into the night, but with less than two hours remaining, a suspension failure resulted in the left-rear wheel of the #60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura. Quick work by the MSR crew saw the #60 return for the final 20 minutes and be credited with a sixth-place result.
The #10 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport Acura ARX-06 remained in the thick of the multi-car battle for the victory until just 20 minutes remained in the 12-hour race. While working their way through GT-class traffic, the #7 of Mathieu Jaminet made contact with Filipe Albuquerque in the WRT/Andretti Acura, sending Albuquerque off onto the grass and then back on track where the two cars collided again, with several other cars involved in the resulting chain reaction crash. Fortunately, all drivers appeared to be uninjured.
The 2023 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship now moves west to Southern California for the April 14-16 Acura Grand Prix of Long Beach.
We were looking pretty good for at least a podium [top-three] finish, I think, until the wheel came off. Unfortunately, that impacted our race massively, which is a huge shame. These things happen. We just need to learn from it and mitigate the issue so that it doesn’t happen again.
