Renger van der Zande and Nick Yelloly joined Acura after leaving Cadillac and BMW for the 2025 IMSA SportsCar Championship GTP campaign in partnership with Meyer Shank Racing.
Two-time 24 Hours of Daytona winner van der Zande joined Honda after seven seasons with Cadillac, first with Wayne Taylor Racing, where he won the IMSA Blue Riband enduro in 2019 and 2020, after which with Chip Ganassi Racing.
Yelloly joins from BMW, which announced his departure on Monday, after six years as a factory driver, during which era he won the Nurburgring 24 Hours of enduro and Spa GT3 races and scored the primary IMSA win for the German brand LMDh's M Hybrid V8 in IMSA last 12 months 12 months.
He and Van der Zande can be year-round drivers of one among the pair of Acura ARX-06 LMDh fielded within the GTP class by MSR, which returns to IMSA after a year-long hiatus.
The second automobile can be shared by former MSR Indycar driver Tom Blomqvist and Colin Braun, who will repeat their 2023 partnership that produced a controversial win at Daytona.
MSR was subsequently found to have manipulated information from the tire pressure sensors, for which he was fined and points deducted, but retained the victory.
The team, whose contract with Acura expired at the tip of the season, was not retained as Wayne Taylor Racing and Andretti launched into a planned expansion to 2 cars.
#60 Meyer Shank Racing with Curb Agajanian Acura ARX-06: Tom Blomqvist, Colin Braun, Helio Castroneves
Photo: Art Fleischmann
Now WTR has returned to Cadillac for 2025, which hastened the return of MSR in partnership with Honda Racing Corporation USA (formerly generally known as Honda Performance Development), which runs the Acura LMDh program.
HRC US will tackle a greater role in running the cars on the right track and can be liable for engineering one among the 2025 entries.
Van der Zande thanked Cadillac for “everything they have done for me over the last seven seasons.”
“Even though it's hard for me to leave the band, it's time for a new chapter, which I'm really looking forward to,” he said.
“I've been racing with Acura for the last seven years and they've always been a fierce competitor, but I'm excited to now be on their side, leverage their resources and see what we can do.”
Yelloly also thanked his former employer for riding within the GTP rankings for Rahal in 2023 and 24.
“They were the first to give me a chance as a factory driver back in 2019 and we celebrated many great successes together,” he said.
Yelloly ends his long stint as a BMW factory driver and joins MSR/Acura
Photo: SRO
“I’m very excited to affix the Acura MSR/HRC project. Obviously the team could be very hungry and needs to provide their all, which suits me because I even have the identical mentality.
Team principal Mike Shank said: “Putting Tom and Colin back within the driving seat just made sense. They each had an incredible season in 2023 and I feel this only shines a lightweight on what they’ll achieve together.
“And with the addition of Renger and Nick, they both have a lot of experience in prototyping and have shown a lot of strength over the last few seasons, so I think they will be a big asset to the team.”
