Acura drivers admit that the ARX-06 lacked the pack and the top speed to “attack” the frontrunners in Saturday’s 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Sebring 12 Hours.

Acura put on a lacklustre performance in the second round of the IMSA SpoౠrtsCar Championship, with its two Meyer Shank-entered factory cars never really looking like serious contenders for victory.

Some late progress saw the HRC-engineered #93 LMDh driven by Nick Yelloly, Renger van der Zande and Al﷽ex Palou finis♔h third, five seconds down on the winning Porsche 963.

The sister #60 entry took the chequered flag five laps down in 10th after Tom Blomqvist was involved in a pitlane collision with🐷 the #24 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Phillip Eng.

Theꦯse results were a far cry from its previous showing at Sebring just 12 months ago, when it won the race outright with its previou🤡s team partner Wayne Taylor Racing.

Given the circumstances, van der Z꧟ande said even third-place felt like victory to the Acura crew, but conceded that the ARX-06 lacked the speed to take the fight to Porsche.

"I d♚on't want to say it feels like a victory💎, but it feels like a victory,” the Dutch driver said.

“It was one of those races where we didn't have the pac♓e or the power to really attack at all. But I think defensively we made it to the podium.

“The Meyer Shank and Acura guys all together did an amazing job on strategy and th♓at's why we are on the podium. We can beꦓ very proud of that and very excited to build from here."

IndyCar star Palou, who joined fuಌll-season drivers Yelloly and Renger van der Zande at Sebring, hailed Acura for pulling off a 🌟podium despite “struggling a lot on pace” during the race.

"Great day!𓆏 I'm super happy. It's not a win, but number three is still good!,” he 🌄said.

“It's my first podium with the Acura MSR team, and the first podium for me in GTP. It's a good result for the #93. We were l꧅ooking good in Daytona, but we got unlucky there.

“We had some struggles here as well throughout the day, at some point we were strugglin🎃g a lot on pace, but everybody at HRC and MSR did a great job wor🌜king on the car and making sure we were there at the end to fight for the podium.

“I think it's a great result, it feels like a win. I'll be for sure cheeไring for these guys while I'm doing my IndyCar races, and I can't wait for the next endurance race."

Colin Braun enjoyed a brief stint at the front in the #60 Acura just after the halfway point of the race, but he was soo༒n overtaken by the #31 Action Express Racing Cadillac of Frederik Vesti. He then quickly dropped outside of podium positions.

More drama struck the #60 Acura at the end of hour nine when Braun’s teammate Blomqvist made c🏅ontact with Eng’s BMW in a crowded𒊎 pitlane as they exited their respective pit boxes.

The Acura suffered heavy damage to its bodywork and suspension and was later handed a drive-through penalty for a pitlane violation, leaving it several l🙈aps off the lead.

Explaining the collision from his point of view, Blomqvist said: “We had issues getting out of pit lane 🥀and one car wasn't properly in the fast lane and I had to maneuver around another car and it was just too tight and I brok💙e the front left [suspension].

“I'm ob🍃viously very disappointed for the guys 🌸and I think we could have had both cars fighting for third and fourth.

"I've never hജad ไa good result here and unfortunately this year was the same.”