The first test of Acura’s new ARX-05 Daytona Prototype international in the U.S. will take place next week at Road Atlanta. Team Penske is expected to press Juan Pablo Montoya into service with the ORECA 07-based No. 86 DPi as his co-driver, Dane Cameron, is obligated to completing the season with Action Express Racing before moving into his new seat.

“Our goal right now is we’ll start testing next week with this car,” Roger Penske told RACER. “They had a shakedown with it over in Europe a couple weeks ago, so what we have to do is take it now, we’ll look to get reliability and get drivability and also see where we are from a competitive stance.”

Penske also confirmed the team will enter Petit Le Mans – IMSA’s season finale at the same circuit – in October with a stock WEC LMP2-spec ORECA 07 powered by a Gibson V8 engine to get his Acura staff up and running in competition before the ARX-05’s debut at Daytona in January.

“We will be in a position to run a car at Atlanta in a Petit Le Mans race – not this car, but probably another ORECA-type car – to get our team guys ready to get back in this type of business,” he continued. Testing with the ARX-05s will continue in and around IMSA’s championship closer.

“But we would expect to do 12-hour tests with [the Acuras] before we go to Daytona,” he added. “So there’s a big focus, but we’ll be there with two cars for sure.”

“Now my goal is to be there to be able to run for a win, but there’s plenty of competition, and I’m sure nobody’s asleep, and we’re going to be up probably many nights to try and get competitive.”

Although Team Penske will enter Petit Le Mans as a one-off, the Captain says he and team president Tim Cindric won’t be going into the 10-hour race with polite intentions.

“We’re going to be there to try to win,” he confirmed. “This is part of the program, it’s part of the test program. We’re using it kind of going to school with this type of car. Just the pit work, [a] lot of our tools and things that we’ll use for next year we’ve gotta get them out, get the rust off those and see where we are. But look, it’s evolution as we did with the Porsche program, and Tim and I feel very strong about getting a big race under our belt before we get to Daytona.”