- After winning the prestigious 24 Hours of Daytona in January, Meier Schank Racing is being penalized for manipulating tire-pressure data sent to IMSA during the race.
- The team is suffering a 200-point loss in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, owner Mike Shanks has been placed on probation, and an engineer has been suspended indefinitely.
- However, the team remains the official winner of the race and will be allowed to keep the trophy, with the drivers having Rolex award watches.
Update 3/9/23, 2:40 PM: Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport, the second-place team behind the offending car, did not push for harsher punishment. a spokesperson told car and driver“WTRAndretti feels this is a matter between IMSA, MSR and HPD. We respect the process and decision made by IMSA and look forward to next week at Sebring.”
After the green signal for the final restart with 27 minutes left in the 2023 24 Hours of Daytona, the No. 60 Meyer Shank Racing Acura ARX-06 surged to the lead, winning by just over four seconds. Was heading towards But now the team is coming under fire after IMSA handed out substantial penalties after Meer Shank Racing was found to have manipulated tire-pressure data during the race.
After the race, Honda Performance Development (HPD)—which works closely with the teams that run the top-class Acura GTP race cars—noticed discrepancies in the No. 60’s data and launched an investigation. They discovered that Meyer Shank Racing had created an “intentional software offset” in the tire pressures that were reported by the monitoring system – basically, the team was artificially inflating the tire pressure data, hence the numbers sent to IMSA. Those pressures were greater than what they were actually going through.
This allowed Meyer Shanks Racing to run its pressure below the prescribed minimum set by Michelin, which provides tires for the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which can help improve traction under acceleration or in corners.
As a result of the HPD discovery, the team and the drivers of the No. 60—Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Hélio Castroneves and Simon Pagenaud—were stripped of 200 of the 350 points earned in the WeatherTech Championship races throughout the season. He also lost all points towards the Michelin Endurance Cup, which consists of all races that are at least six hours long.
The team and drivers are also being fined $50,000 and must return the prize money for winning the 24 Hours of Daytona. Team owner Mike Schenck is now on probation until June 30, while engineer Ryan McCarthy is on indefinite suspension and has lost his IMSA credential.
However, the official race results stand, meaning that the No. 60 is still the winner, for the team to keep the trophy and the four drivers to retain the Rolex watches that are given as prizes.
in a statement, Meyer Shank Racing said We accept the series’ decision and have taken responsibility.” The team also stated that “the team member who was responsible is no longer with the organization” and that they “do not want this error to reflect on our team, the drivers and our Impress the tremendous effort put in by all the partners to develop this new LMDH car.” This suggests that McCarthy acted alone in manipulating the data, and that this was not a concerted effort from the team as a whole to break the rules in an effort to win the race.
HPD said In a statement by President David Salters“We are extremely disappointed by the misconduct of the Meier Shank Racing (MSR) team” and that “questioning two years of development of the ARX-06 is unacceptable.”
associate news editor
Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at the age of 13, and he pursued his dream of writing for Car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and attending. car and driver Team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like the Nissan S-Cargo, and he is an avid fan of motorsports.