DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Acura dominated the debut of hybrid engines in North American sports activities automobile racing with a 1-2 end Sunday on the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the place Helio Castroneves and the automaker received the celebrated endurance race for a 3rd consecutive 12 months.

Castroneves received the Rolex in 2021 in an Acura with Wayne Taylor Racing and has received with Meyer Shank Racing the previous two seasons. Castroneves, who turns 48 in Might, was overcome with emotion after Tom Blomqvist closed out the victory.

The Brazilian driver then led his teammates, who included Simon Pagenaud and MSR newcomer Colin Braun, in his signature “Spider-Man” celebratory climbing of the fence.

“I like climbing the fence with Helio,” stated Pagenaud, who received for the second consecutive 12 months and is a teammate of Castroneves’ in IndyCar. Crew proprietor Michael Shank stated throughout Pagenaud’s closing drive within the automobile, “Simon is driving the stint of his life.”

Castroneves acknowledged that he bought emotional at turning into the primary driver to win three consecutive Rolex 24s.

“It is a very robust sport. You lose greater than you win,” Castroneves stated. “It did contact me. That is why I like this sport a lot. It is rather onerous, and while you get it, you have fun.”

Castroneves has been an enormous a part of constructing Meyer Shank Racing, which since serving to Castroneves win a record-tying fourth Indianapolis 500 in 2021 has added consecutive Rolex titles and the IMSA championship. MSR is now a two-car IndyCar program with Castroneves and Pagenaud and has a bona fide budding star in Blomqvist, who was rewarded with an IndyCar check by the staff after final 12 months’s championship season.

“What a automobile we constructed; we had an obligation to take it to the end,” Blomqvist stated. “Then needed to take it to a different degree to safe the win.”

The 29-year-old British driver has earned a starring position with Honda Efficiency Improvement.

“He is a nugget,” Shank stated. “He really believes he is the quickest man on the market. We’re within the Tom Blomqvist enterprise for a very long time.”

Regardless of being the reigning champions, MSR and Acura had been a little bit of an unknown forward of Daytona. The twice-round-the-clock endurance race this 12 months marked the launch of a brand new hybrid period of racing, and the change in expertise for IMSA’s prime GTP class makes it the one motorsports sequence in North America to race with hybrid engines.

The transfer has been a large draw to automakers desperate to compete in motorsports with expertise that pertains to their highway automobiles. As such, the highest GTP class doubled its producers from two eventually 12 months’s Rolex to 4 this season, and Daytona Worldwide Speedway officers stated the group for the Saturday-to-Sunday race this 12 months was the biggest within the occasion’s 61 years.

The followers got here for a showdown between a number of the prime carmakers on the earth.

Acura put forth a pair of entries with Shank and Wayne Taylor, who partnered solely final month with Michael Andretti. Porsche lured Roger Penske again to sports activities automobile racing with two automobiles, and BMW persuaded Bobby Rahal to maneuver his program as much as IMSA’s prime class. Cadillac got here robust with three entries, two from Chip Ganassi Racing and a 3rd from Whelen Engineering.

However the whole buildup to the launch become nervous hand-wringing over sturdiness issues, as all 9 GTP groups anxious that the brand new expertise and provide chain points would forestall the automobiles from finishing a 24-hour race.

“Ye who’ve little religion,” stated David Salters, head of Honda Efficiency Improvement. “Apparently, our automobile can do 24 hours.”

Alas, one in every of Rahal’s BMWs had an early mechanical drawback, after which each of Penske’s Porsches broke. It was a bitter blow for Porsche, which, with Penske, had accomplished all the first growth work for the GTP transfer to hybrid engines.

However Acura and Cadillac had been capable of handle their first-race kinks, and a restart with underneath half-hour remaining had each Acuras and two Cadillacs in rivalry for the general win.

It was Blomqvist, the primary driver final 12 months for the MSR staff that received each the IMSA championship and the Rolex, closing it out within the No. 60 Acura. He held off Filipe Albuquerque within the Acura for Taylor/Andretti on the restart, and Blomqvist just about coasted his option to the win.

Renger van der Zande and Earl Bamber completed third and fourth for Chip Ganassi Racing, however each their Cadillacs had been greater than 7 seconds behind Blomqvist.

The Rolex victory is the third for Shank, who constructed a tiny staff right into a motorsports participant.

It was an infinite aid for Shank, who fights a relentless complicated that his staff that competes in each IMSA and IndyCar is not revered and has felt great strain to ship for Acura on this hybrid period. Shank desires MSR to be a two-car manufacturing facility staff, however Acura splits its two automobiles between Shank and Taylor. And Taylor only in the near past partnered with Andretti.

Shank insisted that each on-track session confirmed that MSR is a top-level staff, and Blomqvist received the pole whereas the No. 60 was quickest in practically each session. It was so apparent that rival staff house owners admitted that their solely shot to beat Shank was the Acura not making it to the end.