Sensational epilogue more than a month after the end of the 24h of Daytona, in which the winners of Meyer Shank Racing were caught out, but not deprived of the victory obtained in the first event of the IMSA SportsCar Championship.
The organizers of the American series have communicated that the team linked to Acura Motorsports, which had imposed itself at the absolute level and in the GTP Class with the ARX-06 LMDh #60, has manipulated the data relating to the pressures of the Michelin tires, monitored by the sensors set on the minimum values set by the regulation.
The incredible thing is that, having established the infringement of the officially published tender results, IMSA was forced to adopt the penalty system provided for by the regulation (Art. 3.6.6.E.) which highlights how much the failure to comply with the Operating is prohibited and may result in minimal penalties.
#60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06: Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud
Photo by: Michael L. Levitt / Motorsport Images
MSR finds itself penalized in terms of scores, as well as its drivers, but without Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud losing the triumph achieved in Florida on January 29th.
In fact, the sanctions are the deduction of 200 points in the drivers’ and team classifications, and the total reduction relating to the Endurance Cup classification, in addition to the revocation of the prize money awarded to the winner.
In addition, MSR will have to pay a $50,000 fine, with chief Michael Shank deferred until June 30 and engineer Ryan McCarthy having his IMSA membership revoked and suspended indefinitely.
The victory instead remains untouched because the Honda Performance Development (HPD) technicians, realizing the problem, reported the tire pressure anomalies to IMSA once the official race results had already been published.
#60 Meyer Shank Racing w/ Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06: Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves, Simon Pagenaud
Photo by: Richard Dole / Motorsport Images
The team issued a press release, which also reached Motorsport.com, to explain what happened and apologize for the crime.
“We want to apologize to Acura, HPD and all of our contributors. We have addressed this issue internally and the team member who was responsible for this is no longer a part of the team.”
“We don’t want this mistake to overshadow the enormous effort that our team, drivers and all our partners have put into developing this new LMDh car. We consider this matter closed and are fully focused on restarting ahead of the 12h of Sebring “.
