In a statement issued on Tuesday morning, Meyer Shank said it will put its full-focus its IndyCar next year, where it will field two cars for Tom Blomqvist and Felix Rosenqvist, and an additional third entry at Indy 500 for Helio Castroneves.
No reason was mentioned behind MSR decision to ‘pause’ its IMSA GTP effort with Acura, but the team stated that it will retain all its staff in order to mount a comeback.
“Making the decision to take a year away from IMSA was not an easy one by any means,” said team co-owner Shank.
“Our guys live and breathe this team, and have committed most of their lives to working on these cars and traveling to races – and many of them have been with us for nearly 20 years. For Jim (Meyer) and I, our main focus was getting our guys set and making sure they were all going to be OK, which we were able to do.
“There are a lot of projects that we have going at the shop, and of course some of the guys will be helping with our growing INDYCAR program.
“The third Indianapolis 500 entry for Helio is a very big deal and I’m glad to have the right people in place to help us be as ready as possible for him to go get that fifth one. And then when we need to prepare for the IMSA program, we’ll still have this great group together and ready to go.”
MSR’s future in IMSA had appeared to be in doubt ever since Wayne Taylor Racing with Acura revealed plans to enter a second Acura ARX-06 in IMSA next year. This meant that Acura would have had to expand its GTP programme to three cars for MSR to be on the grid next year.
MSR’s decision to move Blomqvist from its IMSA programme to IndyCar for next season in place of Castroneves further fuelled suggestions that the team won’t be returning to the GTP class next year.
MSR was caught in a major controversy at the start of the year when it was found guilty of manipulating tire data in the Rolex 24 at Daytona, an offence for which it was hit with $50,000 fine and 200-point deduction in both teams and drivers’ standings.
It was the Honda Performance Racing department that reported the breach to IMSA.
The squad, however, managed to keep the win - its second in as many attempts following its 2022 success with DPi rules.
