Van Der Zande puts Acura on top in the Motor City
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NBC Sports
6 days ago
- NBC Sports
How to watch 2025 IMSA Road America on Peacock: Streaming info, start times and daily schedules
Acura will try to maintain a two-month win streak in the Grand Touring Prototype category of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. After wins at Detroit (the No. 93 ARX-06) and Watkins Glen International (the No. 60 ARX-06), the Meyer Shank Racing Acuras will return with IMSA's premier division at Road America — where the manufacturer is winless since a 2022 repave. But Tom Blomqvist, who won at Watkins Glen with co-driver Colin Braun, is optimistic after a strong test at the 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. 'I'd say it's probably my favorite track from an enjoyment level to drive,' Blomqvist said. 'I think also we're lucky that it's a great track for our car. It really brings out the strengths. 'In the past, it's always been a strong track for us, so I don't see a reason why it's not going to be again. I think we we've really made good gains as a team as well. Every race we're kind of getting better with the new organization, as there's a lot of new faces and new people. I feel like we're just getting stronger. So, yeah, I think we're hopeful that we can fight for the victory again next weekend.' After taking the 2024 season off, MSR has returned to full-time competition with heavier involvement from Honda Racing Corporation in the strategy and engineering of its No. 93 ARX-06. Acura's winning run has interrupted a strong start for Porsche Penske Motorsport, which won the first four races this season (most recently in mid-May at Laguna Seca) and still maintains a healthy lead in the championship standings. Full-time manufacturers BMW and Cadillac are seeking their first GTP wins in 2025. The GTP category has been on a six-week layoff since mid-June at Watkins Glen and returns for the only sprint race that will feature all four divisions of the SportsCar Championship. It's also the last two-hour, 40-minute race for a while at Road America, whose event will increase to six hours next year. Last year, Mathieu Jaminet and Nick Tandy combined for a win in the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. Jaminet remains in the No. 6 with Matt Campbell, and Tandy is paired with Felipe Nasr in the No. 7, which leads the points. Here are the start times, daily schedules and streaming info for the 2025 IMSA Motul SportsCar Grand Prix: 2025 IMSA Road America WHEN: Sunday, Aug. 3 at 2:10 p.m. ET DISTANCE: A two-hour, 40-minute race on the 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. ENTRY LIST: Click here to see the 49-car field in the GTP, LMP2, GTD Pro and GTD categories for the Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America. FORECAST: According to Weather Underground, it's expected to be 77 degrees with an 8% chance of rain at the green flag. QUALIFYING: Saturday, Aug. 2 at 5:35 p.m. ET (streamed on Peacock Premium) How to Watch IMSA at Road America TV/STREAMING: The Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America will be streamed on Peacock Premium from flag to flag beginning at 2 p.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 3. The NBC Sports broadcast will feature announcers Calvin Fish and Brian Till. Matt Yocum and Kevin Lee are the pit reporters. RADIO: All sessions live on SiriusXM live race coverage begins June 22 at noon (SiriusXM channel 206, Web/App 996) IMSA Road America schedule, start times Here's a rundown of the IMSA schedule this week at the 14-turn, 4.048-mile road course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin (all times are ET): Thursday, July 31 2:05-2:50 p.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo practice 3:10-3:40 p.m.: Mustang Challenge practice 3:55-4:25 p.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup practice 4:40-5:25 p.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo practice 9 - 10 a.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge practice 10:15-10:45 a.m.: Mustang Challenge practice 11-11:40 a.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup practice 1:40-2:40 p.m. :Michelin Pilot Challenge practice 3-4:30 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice 4:50-5:05 p.m.: Mustang Challenge qualifying 5:20-5:50 p.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup qualifying 6:05-6:20 p.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo qualifying 6:25-6:40 p.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo qualifying 6:55-7:30 p.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge qualifying Saturday, Aug. 2 9-9:45 a.m.: Mustang Challenge Race 1 (Peacock Premium) 10:05-11:35 a.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship practice 11:55 a.m.-12:35 p.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup Race 1 (Peacock Premium) 12:55-1:45 p.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo Race 1 (Peacock Premium) 3:05-5:05 p.m.: Michelin Pilot Challenge Road America 120 (Peacock Premium) 5:40-7:10 p.m.: IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship qualifying (Peacock Premium) Sunday, Aug. 3 9:20-10:05 a.m.: Mustang Challenge Race 2 (Peacock Premium) 10:25-11:15 a.m.: Lamborghini Trofeo Race 2 (Peacock Premium) 11:35 a.m.-12:15 p.m.: Porsche Carrera Cup Race 2 (Peacock Premium) 2:10 p.m.: IMSA Motul SportsCar Grand Prix at Road America (Peacock Premium) 2025 SEASON RECAPS ROUND 1: Porsche Penske's Felipe Nasr closes Rolex 24 at Daytona win for second conseuctive year ROUND 2: Porsche Penske Motorsport sweeps top two spots at Twelve Hours of Sebring ROUND 3: Nasr, Tandy stay perfect with Porsche in victory at Long Beach ROUND 4: The other Porsche Penske 963 wins at Laguna Seca ROUND 5: Acura outduels Cadillac for first victory of season ROUND 6: Meyer Shank Racing Acura stretches battery to Wakins Glen win
Car and Driver
24-06-2025
- Car and Driver
Acura's Katherine Legge Breaks Down the Challenges of Pikes Peak
Katherine Legge has raced just about everything on four wheels. She's driven IndyCars at over 230 mph at the Indy 500, drafted in a pack of NASCARs, and driven through the night in endurance races, including piloting the radical DeltaWing. But the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, which she entered for the first time last year and returned to this year with Acura, is a challenge unlike any she had faced before. We spoke with Legge after her run up the 14,115-foot mountain at this year's Race to the Clouds and learned about the preparations needed and the obstacles she faced at one of the most unique motorsports events in the world. Legge has yearned to race up Pikes Peak, among the tallest mountains in the United States, since she first came to the country around 20 years ago. But the hill climb—the second-longest-running motorsports event in the U.S. after the Indy 500—remained a distant dream for many years, her busy racing schedule clashing with the event's June date. But when her summer opened up last year, "it kind of fell into my lap," she said. Legge has a long relationship with Acura and Honda Racing Corporation (HRC, formerly known as HPD). "They gave me the opportunity, and so I said, yes, please, I'll do it." Acura She quickly discovered that preparing for Pikes Peak is unlike most other races. While IndyCar drivers practice for the Indy 500 with state-of-the-art simulators—such as Honda's "Driver in the Loop" sim that we got to try out last year—there isn't an equivalent resource to mimic driving up the mountain. "I learned it old school," Legge explained. "I watched video over and over again, rewinding and going again for hours." The 12.42-mile track winds its way up Pikes Peak, with more than 150 turns that include twisting esses and abrupt hairpins, making it difficult to memorize. Legge compared it to the notorious Nürburgring Nordschleife, Germany's 12.94-mile behemoth nicknamed "The Green Hell." She had learned that track virtually and employed the same approach here. "I've watched days' worth of video," Legge said, using footage to pick out crucial reference points. Acura Most permanent racetracks have numbered boards showing how far you are from the corner and other landmarks like flag stands, but Pikes Peak's geography and temporary status as a racetrack meant Legge had to use more unorthodox ways to find her braking points and racing lines. She pointed to snow stakes that mark the edge of the road, different types of barriers, and giant boulders that dot the mountainside. She even looks to the temporary bathrooms strewn across the mountain for spectators and race officials. "I'm like, 'okay, I've got to hug the mountain after the portaloo,'" she said, describing her thinking as she blasts up the mountain. One thing that makes learning the mountain easier is that drivers practice in stages. During the week prior to the race, drivers embark on several practice sessions with the mountain split into three parts. They run each section multiple times during practice, and parcelling it out into three portions makes it easier to remember. "But at no point in time do you ever put it together until race day," Legge explained. "So I have only ever done the whole thing once." Acura Legge also relied on advice from her racing friends as well as slower drives up the mountain in road cars, a track walk of sorts. But a drive up the mountain—whether in the Integra Type S road car she took last year or the Acura ADX SUV she used this year—can't compare to the feeling of driving a race car at speed. And that points to one of the other big obstacles, getting seat time in the race car. Legge scaled the mountain in an Acura Integra Type S DE5, a race car featuring a 360-hp turbocharged 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine hooked up to a sequential gearbox that feeds the front wheels. Her only time behind the wheel, aside from a single test at High Plains Raceway last year and a brief shakedown this year, is during the event itself. The minimal seat time was especially noteworthy for Legge because of the Integra's front-wheel-drive setup. Nearly all of her racing experience has been in rear-wheel-drive cars, like IndyCars and the Acura NSX GT3. "But I feel like I've driven everything [under] the sun," she said. "I've driven electric cars, I've driven the DeltaWing. I do feel like my ability to switch between cars, series, and the diverse number of things that I've driven helped." Legge clearly learned quickly, with her rookie attempt in 2024 just a few seconds off the front-wheel-drive record, which was set by a car with 140 more horsepower. "At the end of the day, it's just a race car," she said. "You drive it differently, but almost subconsciously, you know what the car needs." Acura Pikes Peak's sky-high summit is another hurdle. After all, 14,110 feet above sea level is unbelievably high, and even the race's starting point of 4720 feet is a significant elevation. Altitude sickness affects many tourists who visit the mountain, the thin air making it easy to feel out of breath. "We went up to the top of the mountain when we first got here last year, just to see how it would be. Like, am I going to get sick?" Legge said. "But I was fine with it, and I did a bunch of training between the testing and the race, hiking and running in the altitude." This year, Legge also kept her body acclimated by flying to Mexico City—which has an elevation of over 7000 feet—to race in NASCAR between the test and the hill climb. While Legge adjusted easily to the elevation, the cars were also affected. As they enter the thin air near the top of the mountain, their engines struggle to make as much power as they did down below. Temperatures also change dramatically over the course of the run, and every practice session happens early in the morning when it's still cold, since the mountain remains open to tourists during normal hours. This means practice isn't exactly representative of race-day conditions. "Tire pressures, the engine, they don't perform as well in the heat," she noted. "The only time you go all the way up, you really feel the difference from when the tires are fresh and the engine is good at the bottom to when it's gasping for air at the top. It's super greasy and super boggy." Luckily, every driver but those piloting EVs has to contend with those conditions. Acura Sadly, Legge's attempt to break the front-wheel-drive record this year was quashed when high winds at the summit led the race organizers to limit the track to the first two sectors. "I'm disappointed because I think we could have annihilated the front-wheel-drive record," Legge said. "We were like five and a half, six seconds up, halfway up, so it would have been like 10, 15 seconds in the good by the time we got to the top." Still, she is motivated by her pace in the shortened dash up the mountain. "It's a testament to how well Acura and HRC have done working over the last year to get it to lose less power on the way up, get the tires better, get the car performing better over the bumps," she explained. While the puzzle pieces for next year are yet to fall into place, Legge is still eyeing that record. "It's never nice to have unfinished business," she said. "But that's the nature of the mountain and racing. My luck will change soon, I'm sure." Caleb Miller Associate News Editor Caleb Miller began blogging about cars at 13 years old, and he realized his dream of writing for a car magazine after graduating from Carnegie Mellon University and joining the Car and Driver team. He loves quirky and obscure autos, aiming to one day own something bizarre like a Nissan S-Cargo, and is an avid motorsports fan.
NBC Sports
21-06-2025
- NBC Sports
2025 IMSA Watkins Glen starting lineup: Acura takes second consecutive pole with No. 93
With a new face behind the wheel, Acura Meyer Shank Racing captured its second consecutive pole position in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship series with a record-setting performance at Watkins Glen International. Renger van der Zande turned a lap of 1 minute, 31.558 seconds in the No. 93 ARX-06, setting a new mark on the 11-turn, 3.4-mile road course in the Grand Touring Prototype category. Three weeks ago on the streets of Detroit, van der Zande took the checkered flag in the Acura MSR No. 93 after teammate Nick Yelloly had qualified on the pole position. 'Winning Detroit always helps take the weight off the shoulders of the whole team, the program,' van der Zande told NBC Sports' Dave Burns on Peacock after his first pole position since the 2018 Rolex 24 at Daytona. 'The Porsches are way ahead in the championship, and it's hard to beat them over the championship, so let's win some races, and this is a good start. We have a strong car in high-speed stuff like this. That was a very clean lap, and I was enjoying it a lot.' Nate Ryan, Yelloly, who won in the LMP2 category of the 24 Hours of Le Mans last week, and van der Zande will be joined by Kakunoshin 'Kaku' Ohta in Sunday's third endurance race of the IMSA season. Jack Aitken qualified second (1:31.845) in the No. 31 Cadillac, followed by Colin Braun (1:32.167) in Meyer Shank Racing's No. 60 Acura ARX-06. It was a disappointing showing for Porsche Penske Motorsport, which won the first four races of the season. Mathieu Jaminet qualified eighth (1:33.323) in the No. 6 963, and Felipe Nasr (1:33.533) will start 10th in the No. 963 that leads the championship standings. Here are the pole-sitters in other categories for Sunday's six-hour race, which will start shortly after noon ET on NBC and Peacock: LMP2: PJ Hyett, No. 99 AO Racing ORECA LMP2 07, 1:35.878 GTD Pro: Andrea Caldarelli, No. 9 Pfaff Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, 1:44.595 GTD: Zacharie Robichon, No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, 1:44.788 WATKINS GLEN QUALIFYING ROUNDUP Results Results by class Fastest lap by driver Fastest lap by driver after qualifying Fastest lap by driver and class after qualifying Best sector times Fastest lap sequence Time cards Weather report Track limits analysis PRACTICE RESULTS: Session I l Session II
