2026 is here, and so Motornerd returns to give you the lowdown on every Hypercar competing in 2026! Over the next five weeks I’ll be breaking down the 10 – yes, 10! – competitors’ prospects across both IMSA and WEC and give my verdict on how they’ll do.
This time last year, Acura were seemingly doing everything possible to ensure they found themselves at the sharp end of the pre-season talk. Yet a year on from a total revamp of the brand’s ARX-06 LMDh project which saw Meyer Shank Racing return to a post they’d forfeit in 2024, the talk is muted.
Because really, nothing’s changed at all.
I don’t have a word count limit when it comes to these articles – I instead subscribe to the perhaps whimsical and naive sounding idea of ‘it will be as long as it needs to.’ But on this occasion, I’m finding myself struggling for a real angle of intrigue.
2026 will see Acura return to the IMSA WeatherTech Sportscar Championship with the same drivers, the same cars, the same chassis and pretty much identical liveries. When you look at how MSR’s return panned out for Acura, that’s worrying.
In the #60 will once again be the dependable duo of Colin Braun and Tom Blomqvist, while Renger Van De Zande and Nick Yelloly return to pilot the #93. In terms of the drivers aiding Acura in the Michelin Endurance Cup rounds, Kakuoshin Ohta and Alex Palou will be once again entrusted with the #93. The #60 will have two new faces – Indycar legend Scott Dixon and former winner of the Rolex 24 with MSR in 2012 A.J Allmendinger.
In 2025, against the backdrop of parent company Honda’s globalisation of its motorsport initiatives, the newly formed Honda Racing Corporation sunk its teeth into the heart of the Acura garage, taking control of the #93 machine now complete with HRC colours.
MSR retained full control of the #60 and given the history the team had with the ARX-06 – That infamous Rolex 24 scandal notwithstanding – you might’ve expected them to school the new guys.
What instead followed was the worst season on record for Acura’s Hypercar effort.
HRC would get their #93 to 4th and MSR’s #60 managed a middling would season wasn’t exactly one you’d call awful, with each car taking a win and two further podiums at six separate rounds between them, but it really wasn’t anything to shout about either. And that’s why I’m worried. 2023 was the car’s best season by far when you look at the stats, and it’s only gone downhill from there. Unless HRC can work some more magic, and MSR can return to form for the first time since their return I only see them slipping further.
The competition in IMSA is only set to become increasingly cut-throat as the years roll on. Porsche-Penske have nothing else to distract them, Genesis are coming in 2027 with Ford and McLaren also entering the fray soon after. I don’t think it’s all doom and gloom however. That amount of overnight change is inevitably going to take its toll on the results, but now the drivers are used to the car, HRC know how to run the ARX-06 and MSR have no excuses left either.
2026 simply has to work for Acura. They need to dust themselves off in this off-season and truly remember who they are. Acura have been a staple of prototype racing for nearly two decades now, and if IMSA is all we are hoping for in 2026 they need to step out of the shadows and strike.
Motornerd IMSA Manufacturer’s Championship prediction: 4th
With BMW now under WRT’s control, and Porsche solely focusing on IMSA 2026 will be Acura’s most challenging year on record. That’s not too say they won’t be competitive, I think they’ll bag the odd win and podium but for me they just don’t stack up to their competitors.
image credit – SmackJam, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
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