Acura’s Cameron, Montoya Finish Fifth at Road America
• Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron score fifth top-five result of 2018
• Alvaro Parente, Katherine Legge finish seventh in GTD
• GTD championship fight continues into final three races
ELKHART LAKE, WI (August 5, 2018) – Fuel strategy and contact between competitors determined the outcome of Sunday’s Continental Tire Road Race Showcase, with Dane Cameron and Juan Pablo Montoya combining to bring their Acura Team Penske ARX-05 prototype home fifth.
In the GTD class, Katherine Legge and Alvaro Parente combined to finish seventh in another tight contest, with the majority of the field fighting for position right up to the checkers at the end of the two-hour, 40-minute WeatherTech SportsCar Championship event.
Acura Team Penske Prototype
A series of full-course cautions turned the prototype contest into a battle of fuel strategies, with Acura Team Penske’s Montoya and Cameron jumping from 10th to fifth in the closing laps to lead the Acura effort on Sunday. The result is the fifth top-five finish for the pair this season.
In the #7 Acura ARX-05, Helio Castroneves lost time leaving the pits after taking over the driving duties from starting driver Ricky Taylor, and late-race contact from fellow prototype driver Pipo Derani dropped Castroneves from seventh to 10th at the finish.
Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3
In GTD, Legge started her #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3 seventh, moving up to fifth in her opening stint despite suffering body and aerodynamic damage following contact with Cooper MacNeil while fighting for position. Taking over driving duties mid-race, Parente found himself in the middle of a tight battle among all of the GTD contenders, but increasing understeer in the closing laps dropped him to seventh at the finish.
The #93 MSR Acura of Justin Marks and Lawson Aschenbach also started strong, with Marks gaining three positions in the opening laps and briefly running as high as fifth in the early laps. However, the second MSR Acura also sustained damage due to contact with a slowing prototype entry, resulting in a drive-through penalty for Aschenbach and an eighth-place finish.
With three GT races remaining, Acura and Legge remain second in the GTD Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ championships, respectively. Legge trails points leaders Bryan Sellers and Madison Snow by 18 points (250-232), while Acura remains second in the Manufacturers’ Championship with 232 points to 257 for Lamborghini.
Next
The WeatherTech SportsCar Championship next runs the second of two GT class-only races of 2018, the August 19 Michelin GT Challenge at the fast, flowing Virginia International Raceway road course near Danville, Va.
Video recaps from this weekend’s Acura Motorsports racing activities at Road America will be posted on the “Honda Racing/HPD” YouTube channel. Produced by the Carolinas Production Group, the video packages can be found at: https://www.youtube.com/HondaRacingHPDTV
Quotes
Dane Cameron (driver, #6 Acura Team Penske ARX-05) finished fifth: “This was a really tough day. Road America is so racy, you know it’s going to always be a great show for the fans. It was pretty wild there at times. But with the fuel capacity we’re given right now, we had to make an extra [pit] stop. This track also is high on tire wear, so you spend a lot of time sliding around. To finish fifth with all that is pretty good, so we’ll take it and move on to the next one.”
Alvaro Parente (driver, #86 Meyer Shank Racing Acura NSX GT3) finished seventh: “Really tough race today. Of course, we don’t have enough ‘grunt’ coming out of the corners as some of the others right now. But it didn’t go our way in terms of strategy with the yellows, and the [nose] damage affected our ability to race everyone else. The car was understeering from the beginning with Katherine [Legge] and it just got worse as the race went on, making it hard to fight for positions at the end.”
Stephen Eriksen (Vice President and COO, Honda Performance Development) on today’s race: “This was a bit of an unusual race today, with the cautions, contacts, and differing fuel strategies. Admittedly, coming into the weekend, we expected this race to be a challenge. Despite everyone’s best efforts, the results didn’t fall our way. We’ll regroup and make any required adjustments to improve in the remaining races of the season.”