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The ex-Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX05 DPi, overall winner of the 2021 Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona, freshly rebuilt and eligible for a plethora of historic races.

Overview

Overall winner of the 2021 Rolex Daytona 24 Hours and pole winner of the 2022 edition
Campaigned throughout the 2021 IMSA Championship, with a further victory at Mid-Ohio and additional podium finishes
Fielded by decorated champions and current works Cadillac équipe, Wayne Taylor Racing
Driven by Indy 500 winners Hélio Castroneves and Alexander Rossi alongside multiple Daytona 24 hours winners Filipe Albuquerque and Ricky Taylor.
Full carbon-fibre monocoque, 600bhp DPi-specification HPD 3.5-litre twin-turbocharged V6, six-speed paddle-shift sequential gearbox, carbon brakes, total weight circa 930kg.
Acquired directly from Honda Racing Corporation (HRC) whose recently launched Heritage Racing Programme offers comprehensive support, maintenance and spare parts to owners of historically significant Honda and Acura race cars
Offered in race-ready condition having been fully rebuilt by Capone Motorsports in 2025, with support from Meyer Shank Racing, Penske, Oreca and Hudson Historics
Eligible for HSR’s Prototype Challenge in the US, including the prestigious Daytona and Sebring Classics, and the Rolex Reunion at Laguna Seca during Monterey Car Week, with developing opportunities in Europe

Honda has been a fixture of North American sports-car racing since 1991. Its record includes three consecutive IMSA Camel Lights championships with its premium brand, Acura, in the early 1990s, in addition to LMP1 and LMP2 American Le Mans Series titles in 2009, 2012 and 2013. In 2018 Acura launched the ARX-05 to contest the premier Daytona Prototype international (DPi) class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. With examples fielded by Team Penske, Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing, and driven by world-class talent, the ARX-05 became one of the most successful cars of the DPi era. Over five seasons Acura swept the drivers’, teams’ and manufacturers’ championships three times and claimed two outright victories at the Rolex Daytona 24 Hours, in 2021 and 2022. Such a record firmly established Honda (Acura) as a force in modern American endurance racing.
The ARX-05 was built to the Daytona Prototype international (DPi) regulations introduced in 2017, which offered major manufacturers a cost-effective route into top-flight sports-car racing. Each manufacturer could pair its own engine and brand-specific bodywork with a chassis from one of four approved constructors: Oreca, Dallara, Ligier or Multimatic. Honda Performance Development (HPD), Honda’s North American competition arm, chose Oreca and based the ARX-05 on the carbon-fibre composite monocoque of the Oreca 07. That chassis remains the benchmark of the international LMP2 category to this day.
HPD worked closely with Acura’s designers to ensure the bespoke bodywork carried clear cues from the brand’s road cars. The striking, Acura-specific design features the signature ‘Jewel Eye’ headlights and beautifully sculpted, swooping rear fenders. Power came from the latest evolution of the production-based AR35TT, a twin-turbocharged, direct-injection V6 that produced 600 bhp with the mandatory restrictors fitted. A cooling system bespoke to the ARX-05 complemented the engine, which delivered its power via an Xtrac six-speed sequential gearbox operated by paddles behind the steering wheel. Carbon-ceramic brake discs provided stopping power, and contributed to a lithe total weight of 930 kg.
Acura made its ambitions for the ARX-05 unmistakably clear by entrusting the car to the world-famous Team Penske for the 2018 season, whose championship-winning pedigree across multiple disciplines made it the ideal partner. The Penske cars wore a striking white and orange livery, a nod to the Acura-engined prototypes that dominated IMSA’s Camel Lights class in the early 1990s. A formidable line-up of drivers took the wheel, including multiple Formula One grand prix winner Juan Pablo Montoya, four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Hélio Castroneves, Daytona 24 Hours winner Ricky Taylor, and Indianapolis 500 winner and IndyCar champion Simon Pagenaud. Fortune deserted the team at the season-opening Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours, where mechanical issues and accident damage prevented the ARX-05 from converting its pace into results. No such problems arose at Mid-Ohio however, where Team Penske claimed a dominant one-two finish, with further podiums secured over the remainder of that maiden season.
Team Penske and the ARX-05 began the following 2019 campaign with clear intent, claiming an overall podium at the Daytona 24 Hours. A superb run of seven consecutive podium finishes followed for the #6 car of Montoya and Cameron, including victories at Mid-Ohio, Detroit’s Belle Isle and Laguna Seca, more than enough to secure the teams’, drivers’ and manufacturers’ championships. Team Penske repeated the feat in 2020, this time led by the #7 car, which won four races outright at Elkhart Lake, Road Atlanta, Mid-Ohio and Laguna Seca, and finished second at Petit Le Mans.
After three seasons with the ARX-05, Team Penske stepped aside at the end of 2020, making way for two equally accomplished outfits: Wayne Taylor Racing and Meyer Shank Racing. Each fielded a single Acura in the 2021 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. Although both teams were new to the ARX-05, many of the drivers remained, their contracts held directly by Acura, a clear sign of the manufacturer’s continued commitment to the programme.
In a fiercely contested race, the Wayne Taylor Racing Acura ARX-05 claimed a superb victory on its debut in the blue riband Daytona 24 Hours. Shared by Filipe Albuquerque, Hélio Castroneves, Alexander Rossi and Ricky Taylor, the ARX-05 crossed the line after 807 laps with the top three separated by less than seven seconds, a testament to the strength of that year’s DPi field. Victory followed at Mid-Ohio, fittingly securing Acura’s fourth consecutive win in its own Acura Sports Car Challenge, before Wayne Taylor Racing added a third success to its 2021 tally at Laguna Seca.
The 2022 season saw the two Acura teams dominate. Their campaign opened with a one-two at Daytona, Meyer Shank Racing beating Wayne Taylor Racing by just three seconds. Three further one-two finishes followed, at Laguna Seca, Mid-Ohio and Watkins Glen, with the ARX-05 remaining unbeaten at Mid-Ohio. Meyer Shank Racing closed the season with victory at Petit Le Mans, sealing the drivers’, teams’ and manufacturers’ championships, with Wayne Taylor Racing runner-up in the standings.
A comprehensive overhaul of the regulations at the end of 2022 rendered the ARX-05 obsolete, and it was succeeded by the hybrid ARX-06. Having competed in five of the six seasons of the fiercely contested DPi era, against the likes of Cadillac, Mazda and Nissan, the ARX-05 can lay claim to being the most successful DPi car of all. Over those five seasons it won three teams’ and drivers’ championships, together with two outright victories at the Daytona 24 Hours.
Chassis 005 was completed by Oreca in October 2020 as a brand-new car ahead of the 2021 season, and was entrusted by Acura to Wayne Taylor Racing for that year’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. A stalwart of North American sports-car racing, ‘WTR’ was founded in 2004 by former South African racing driver Wayne Taylor, whose own career included outright victories at the Daytona 24 Hours and Sebring 12 Hours, as well as a class win at Le Mans. Having begun life in Grand-Am, the team joined the IMSA ranks following the merger of the two series in 2014. From 2017 WTR raced as a leading Cadillac factory team, enjoying great success in the DPi category against Acura and Team Penske. With recent Daytona 24 Hours victories in 2017, 2019 and 2020, the team was well equipped to take over from Team Penske, which had run Acura’s works effort from 2018 to 2020.
Full-season duties in the Konica Minolta-liveried WTR ARX-05 fell to Daytona 24 Hours winner Filipe Albuquerque and IMSA champion Ricky Taylor. They were joined by 2016 Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi for selected events, while four-time Indianapolis 500 winner Hélio Castroneves completed a star-studded line-up at Daytona. Chassis 005 made its competition debut in the Motul Pole Award 100 at Daytona, a 100-minute sprint race run for the first time that year to set the grid for the following weekend’s 24 Hours. Albuquerque and Taylor shared driving duties and brought the car home fifth overall, less than nine seconds behind the winning Cadillac.
The Daytona 24 Hours itself proved as much of a sprint as the 100-minute race a week earlier, and remained undecided until the closing minutes. Albuquerque, Taylor, Castroneves and Rossi enjoyed a trouble-free run, entering the final hour in contention with four other cars still on the lead lap. A swift final pit stop moved the Acura to the front, but with eight minutes remaining Renger van der Zande’s Cadillac was still within striking distance. Albuquerque kept a cool head under intense pressure, and when the Cadillac suffered a puncture in the dying minutes, the Portuguese driver brought the ARX-05 home safely to take the chequered flag. Victory gave Acura its historic first overall win at the Daytona 24 Hours, and Wayne Taylor Racing a third consecutive triumph in the world-famous twice around-the-clock enduro.
Following this success, chassis 005 headed to the Acura Sports Car Challenge at Mid-Ohio. Having qualified just behind the pole-sitting Mazda, Albuquerque and Taylor preserved the ARX-05’s unbeaten record at Mid-Ohio by securing victory by less than four tenths of a second ahead of Felipe Nasr’s Cadillac.
These back-to-back victories were followed by a run of podium finishes. Albuquerque and Taylor finished third at Detroit’s Belle Isle, at the Watkins Glen Six Hours (with Rossi) and in the WeatherTech 240 at Watkins Glen, before taking fourth at Road America. The Petit Le Mans season finale, with Rossi rejoining the line-up, became a winner-takes-all title showdown with the Action Express Cadillac. After ten hours of racing, Taylor’s last-lap attempt to pass for the championship fell agonisingly short, leaving chassis 005 third on the road and runner-up in the standings. The car’s final contemporary outing came at the Roar Before the 24 in January 2022, where Albuquerque and Taylor won the Motul Pole Award 100 to secure pole position for the Daytona 24 Hours, for which the team used chassis 007 as its race car.
Retired from front-line duty for the 2022 season, this ARX-05 was returned to HPD, since renamed Honda Racing Corporation USA (HRC US). The factory later sold chassis 005 as a rolling chassis to our vendor, who entrusted the car to Capone Motorsport for restoration. Throughout 2025 the car underwent a comprehensive rebuild, carried out with the support of period teams and suppliers including Meyer Shank Racing, Team Penske, Oreca and Hudson Historic. Significant investment was made over this period, including the fitment of a fresh AR35TT engine, a new wiring loom, a freshly rebuilt gearbox and a new fuel cell. Every critical component was crack-tested, and the restoration has been fully documented throughout. Since completion, the car has covered only minimal shakedown mileage.
Acura ARX-05 chassis 005 represents an exceptional opportunity to acquire a works supported, Daytona 24 Hours-winning DPi from one of the most successful manufacturers in North American sports-car racing this century. Driven by some of the finest drivers of its era, this chassis boasts a pedigree headed by outright victory in North America’s greatest sports-car race, complemented by a second win and four further podium finishes during the 2021 IMSA season. The result is a highly desirable example of Acura’s all-conquering ARX-05.
With IMSA’s premier class adopting hybrid powertrains from 2023, the ARX-05 also belongs to the final generation of non-hybrid prototypes to contest the top class. Now fully restored and race-ready, chassis 005 is equally suited to taking pride of place in a significant collection or returning to the circuit for which ongoing, comprehensive maintenance and technical support is available directly from Honda's own Heritage Racing Programme. The car is eligible for HSR events in the US, including the Sebring and Daytona retrospectives, with further opportunities developing in Europe.
- Crack Testing:
Last completed: July 2025
- Engine Life:
Newly rebuilt in 2025, has only completed shakedown mileage since its rebuild with recommended rebuild intervals of 3,500 km, as advised by HRC
- Gearbox:
Newly rebuilt in 2025, has only completed shakedown mileage since its rebuild
- Fuel Cell Certification:
Expiry date: May 2028
- Seatbelts:
New seatbelts installed in 2025
- Fire Extinguisher:
New extinguisher installed in 2025
- Category
Daytona Prototype International (DPi)
- Chassis
ARX-05 based on Oreca 07 LMP2 carbon tub
- Engine
HPD AR35TT, 3.5 litre, twin-turbo V6 producing in excess of 600bhp
- Gearbox
X-Trac 1159 6-speed, paddle-shift sequential
- Front & Rear suspension
Double wishbone with modified geometry from base Oreca 07, coil springs, Acura/Penske dampers, cockpit adjustable anti-roll bars
- Brakes
Brembo XA5 calipers, HITCO H17 carbon discs, Carbontech pads
- Weight
910kg (min without ballast)
- Electronics
McLaren Tag400i ECU with HPD calibrations, HPD DI Injector control unit, Cosworth steering wheel, Gentex GNTX-R rear view camera
- Tyres
Michelin slicks/wets
HSR Prototype Challenge (USA) - including Daytona and Sebring Classics
For IMSA/FIA prototypes, which competed post-1998, HSR’s Prototype Challenge holds a number of events in the United States. Among these events are two of the premier events for historic endurance competition, which are HSR Classic Daytona in November and HSR Classic Sebring 12 Hour in December.
Future Eligibility
HRC is working directly with major UK and European historic series to explore eligibility for DPi cars, with invitations likely for official test days, demonstrations and invitational class race entries. This work is aimed at full eligibility for the DPi at Europe’s leading historic events, with the hope of inclusion in Masters Endurance Legends,MRL Endurance Icons and Peter Auto/Le Mans Classic Series outings.
Car Location: this car is currently located in up-state New York, USA.
Taxes: The car is sold US taxes paid