Acura LMP2 race car to compete at Le Mans next season

The British Strakka Racing team has made a deal to purchase an LMP2-class Acura ARX-01b prototype from Fernández Racing and will campaign it in 2010. Strakka, which ran in LMP1 with a Ginetta-Zytek in 2009, will run the car at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and in the Le Mans Series in Europe. The Fernández team, which won the 2009 LMP2 championship in the American Le Mans Series, looks certain to close its doors after team boss Adrian Fernández stated that his organization has no hope of finding a deal to keep it going--at least not before a self-imposed Nov. 1 deadline.

Strakka is yet to announce the deal officially, but its future direction has become an open secret. It 


informed Zytek, the LMS organizers and the Automobile Club de l’Ouest, the Le Mans organizer, of its plan for next season.


Rising sport-scar star Danny Watts will continue to drive for Strakka in 2010, despite effectively being a Ginetta-Zytek works driver in 2009. Strakka has secured his services with what the team described as a “long-term contract.”


Watts, 29, described his new deal as an “ideal career move” and “a very easy decision to make.”
“Strakka is an ambitious team with firm plans for the future,” said Watts, who will continue to drive with Nick Leventis in 2010. “I want to be part of an organization that knows where it’s going and how to get there.”


Honda Performance Development, which has run the Acura prototype program since it debuted in 2007, has yet to confirm its plans for 2010. It is unlikely that the team’s LMP1 prototype program will continue