Acura ARX-05 testing about to begin

Team Penske, Acura, Honda Performance Development and chassis supplier ORECA will commence testing of the new ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international at the end of the month in France.

"The initial test will actually occur at the end of this month in Europe over at Paul Ricard," Team Penske president Tim Cindric told RACER. "And then the car will be shipped across to the U.S. and hopefully we'll be on the track before the end of August."

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Asked if the ARX-05 would eventually be made available to privateers, HPD president Art St. Cyr said Acura's new DPis are not for sale – at least in the near future.

"As far as customer programs, I think it's premature to be talking about that type of activity," he stated.

"Right now, we're approaching this DPi program as a factory program for Acura Motorsports and we're looking forward to rejoining forces with Team Penske. Once the program gets started and gets moving, we can talk about that."

Information on the two-car program's driver roster is also set on an indefinite timeline.

"With Tim Cindric and Team Penske, we're going to be working on that," he said. "Right now, no drivers have been signed. Obviously, we've had some communication, some discussions on our short list, but we'll be announcing drivers sometime in the future."

As RACER has written, Penske's Juan Pablo Montoya and Helio Castroneves are expected to form part of the ARX-05 driver roster. Both drivers are currently under contract to Team Penske which, technically, supports the statement that no drivers have been signed since they are already signed to the organization.

St. Cyr also revealed Acura's interest in the DPi formula was raised as soon as IMSA announced the manufacturer-inclusive Prototype category.

"This is something that started when the DPi formula was released," he said. "We started talking about how we can introduce this vehicle and how this can be part of Acura's precision-crafted performance message. The fact that Roger Penske is one of our largest Acura dealers really had a lot of good synergy to make this relationship work."

A question was also raised on whether Team Penske and Acura would look to enter IMSA's season finale in October using the non-DPi version of the ORECA 07 chassis in order to gain experience with the car in competition. Cindric said it was a consideration.