Acura buoyed by weight discount for IMSA Sebring 12 Hours

HRC USA president David Salters, who’s answerable for the ARX-06 program, advised Motorsport.com on the season-opening IndyCar Collection spherical at St. Petersburg final weekend that the discount of 17kg for the reason that Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona ought to give it a greater combating probability on uncooked tempo at Sebring this weekend.

The Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Acura pushed by Louis Deletraz, Jordan Taylor, Colton Herta and Jenson Button completed a distant third at Daytona. Its automobiles might solely qualify fifth and sixth within the 10-car GTP discipline, Acura having swept to pole place and gained there in 2023 with Meyer Shank Racing.

Final season, Acura was proper within the title struggle with Cadillac within the last spherical at Petit Le Mans – and solely misplaced out following a late-race conflict between its star driver Filipe Albuquerque and Caddy’s Pipo Derani, the latter occurring to win the title with Alexander Sims.

Since then, the Acura was slapped with important additional ballast on IMSA’s BoP calculations, which have modified in ethos for this season to be reactive to current races and previous occasions at every observe.

“We’ve a really heavy automotive,” Salters advised Motorsport.com at Daytona, who was at pains to level out he wasn’t complaining concerning the BoP. “I took [the weight penalty] as a praise! We’ve accomplished such a great job, so it’s an incredible praise to our girls and boys.

“Heavy automobiles aren’t the kindest issues on their tires. Physics is physics, and weight impacts all elements of the automotive: tires, braking, turning and accelerating.”

When requested why he thought Acura’s BoP for the Rolex 24 was so drastic by way of the load gained, Salters replied: “It’s plainly a query finest requested to IMSA. It’s simulation-based.

“They’re attempting to get all of the automobiles to be equal and I suppose, by way of figuring out what the aero is and figuring out they’ll stability that with energy and weight, they do their simulation.”

However IMSA has now reacted to its real-world findings from Daytona, with the pace-setting Cadillac hit by a 30kg enhance, which implies will probably be 22kgs heavier than when it gained at Sebring final yr at 1060kg.

As compared, the Acura will run at 1055kg, however Caddy’s V-Collection.R has additionally been given a 10kW energy enhance to compensate.

In one other twist, the Daytona-winning Porsche 963 has been trimmed of 2kg to 1049kg, however been given a 11kW energy discount. In addition to its weight discount, which nonetheless makes it the second-heaviest automotive within the discipline 5kg behind the Cadillac, the Acura has had its energy output stemmed by 8kW.

Lamborghini SC63

Photograph by: Lamborghini Squadra Corse

Intriguingly, Lamborghini’s new SC63 LMDh entry, which makes its IMSA SportsCar debut within the GTP class, would be the second-lightest entry at 1044kg – 14kg heavier than the BMW M Hybrid V8.

The Iron Lynx-run automotive may also be the third-most highly effective automotive on the grid, behind the Cadillac and BMW.

IMSA GTP Steadiness of Efficiency (weight v energy)