Acura Dominates Again with 1-2 Finish at Mid-Ohio

• Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing combine for second consecutive 1-2 IMSA victory of 2022; and extend Acura's winning streak at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
• Acura claims mid-season lead for IMSA manufacturer, driver and team championships
• Completes a weekend sweep of sports car, Indy car victories for Acura and Honda

LEXINGTON, Ohio, May 16, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque continued Acura's winning ways at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, and stretched the Acura ARX-05 prototype winning streak here to five years in a row in today's IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship race.

Starting second, Albuquerque moved into the lead at the start, and battled both fellow Acura racers Oliver Jarvis and Tom Blomqvist in their Meyer Shank Racing ARX-05, and the #01 Chip Ganassi Racing entry of Sebastien Bourdais and Renger van der Zande throughout the first half of the endurance contest.  A mid-race caution flag saw Taylor and van der Zande go wheel to wheel, with van der Zande eventually spinning and Blomqvist quick to capitalize as the Acura duo then ran 1-2 to the finish.

Today's victory is the fifth in a row for Acura at Mid-Ohio, as the manufacturer is undefeated here since returning to prototype competition in 2018.  It also completed a weekend sweep for Honda Performance Development, the competition arm of American Honda in North America.  On Saturday, Honda drivers Colton Herta and Simon Pagenaud finished 1-2 in the NTT INDYCAR SERIES race on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. 

After five of 10 races, Acura moved into the lead of the DPi Manufacturers' Championship, with Wayne Taylor Racing, Taylor and Albuquerque moving to the top of the teams and drivers' championships, respectively.

In the production-based GTD class, the #51 Rick Ware Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22 driven by Aidan Read and Ryan Eversley, went off-sequence in their pit strategy mid-race, and led a significant portion of the second half of the two-hour, 40-minute contest.  But a pit lane infraction during their final scheduled stop resulted in a drive-through penalty, and an unrepresentative 10^th place finish.

• 1^st overall - #10 Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque, Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 DPi
• 2^nd overall - #60 Tom Blomqvist and Oliver Jarvis, Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05 DPi
• 10^th GTD - #51 Aidan Read and Ryan Eversely, Rick Ware Racing Acura NSX GT3 Evo22

1. Acura           1,856
2. Cadillac        1,829

1. Filipe Albuquerque, Ricky Taylor; Wayne Taylor Racing                     1707   
2. Tom Blomqvist, Oliver Jarvis; Meyer Shank Racing                            1675
3. Earl Bamber, Alex Lynn; Chip Ganassi Racing                                   1603
4. Tristan Vautier, Richard Westbrook; JDC Miller Motorsports              1583
5. Pipo Derani, Tristan Nunez; Action Express Racing                           1575
6. Sebastien Bourdais, Renger van der Zande, Chip Ganassi Racing   1499

Ricky Taylor (#10 Wayne Taylor Racing ARX-05) Race winner, second consecutive win for Wayne Taylor Racing in 2022; third victory for Acura: "I can't say enough about my teammate.  At the beginning [of the race], the tire pressures just went crazy [high] and I don't know how he drove the car.  Because I got an improvement [fresh tires and adjusted pressures] and I was still struggling.  But at a track where we needed to get everything right, the team executed perfectly.  They just nailed it.  Great teams just find a way to win.  We might not have been the fastest in qualifying, but this just goes to show how strong our team is, that we find a way to win, no matter what."

Filipe Albuquerque (#10 Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05) Race winner: "What an amazing race.  I'm so happy about this group of people [at Wayne Taylor Racing and HPD], just an amazing job by everyone.  We had a great start, but then the car was super, super tricky on old tires, and I was really worried.  But the car came a little bit back to us [after the first pit stop] and Ricky just pulled it off, he was amazing.  A perfect job by everyone at the Konica Minolta Acura team."

Tom Blomqvist (#60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-05) Finished second: "Close again, but not quite enough. That was a crazy race, actually. We were running good, the car looked quick. But we got caught out at our first stop. We stalled, basically. We looked like we had the lead going out of pit lane, we just got that wrong. That put us back in third. We had good pace. On the restart [following a caution period], I struggled a bit with the tire buildup, but I still managed to hold the position because the car was quick. Then I got caught in traffic and two Cadillacs managed to get by. The team did a great strategy to bring me in early [for the final scheduled pit stop]. I did some good out laps and managed to clear them again. They saved our race! Two little errors possibly cost us the win. The positive is, we have a very quick car the last few races. We just have to iron out our mistakes and the wins are going to start coming."

Daniel Bella (Supervisor, Trackside Operations, Honda Performance Development) on today's 1-2 finish for Acura, and fifth consecutive victory, at Mid-Ohio: "This was a fantastic day, and a great weekend overall for Acura, HPD and our teams here in Mid-Ohio, especially coming from a 1-2 sweep at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca (earlier this month), and a Honda 1-2 finish yesterday at Indianapolis. The DPi class produced a great race today, with a long, wheel to wheel battle with the #01 car. For the record books, this is back-to-back wins for Wayne Taylor Racing here at Mid-Ohio, and the ARX-05 is undefeated here in DPi competition.  For their part, Meyer Shank Racing has the fastest race lap [Tom Blomqvist] and ran strong all day long to finish second. A great way to end the day, and a winning weekend for HPD."

• Today's 1-2 Acura finish is the fifth consecutive win for Acura at Mid-Ohio, and the third in a row here for Ricky Taylor.
• It completes a weekend of 1-2 results for Honda Performance Development, with Colton Herta and Simon Pagenaud finishing 1-2 for Honda yesterday in the GMR Grand Prix on the road course at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  The last similar sweep for HPD was in September of 2021, when Alex Palou won the Portland Grand Prix NTT INDYCAR SERIES race for Honda, while Taylor/Albuquerque combined to win at Laguna Seca for Acura and HPD.
• Acura is undefeated at Mid-Ohio since returning to prototype competition in 2018. Last year, Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque scored a thrilling victory in their Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05, combining fuel mileage with speed to hold off the competition by just 1.7 seconds at the checkers.
• Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor won for Acura Team Penske in 2018 and 2020; teammates Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya won for Acura in 2019. 

The Motor City of Detroit is the next stop in the 2022 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, for the Detroit Grand Prix.  One of two 100- minute "sprint races" on the IMSA calendar, the race takes place Saturday, June 12 on the tight and bumpy Belle Isle Park temporary street circuit, with live television coverage on the USA network and streaming on NBC Peacock.

Acura Motorsports social media content and video links from Mid-Ohio can be found on Instagram (www.instagram.com/hondaracing_hpd), Twitter (twitter.com/HondaRacing_HPD) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/HondaRacingHPD).  Additional features and long-form videos can be found on the Honda Racing/HPD YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV).

SOURCE Acura Motorsports