Yahoo Autos Lamborghini’s racing revamp prepares to enter the place “where the air gets thin”
Automobili Lamborghini is celebrating its 60th year as a car company, and while its planned celebration of that milestone two weeks ago was curtailed by the flooding in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy – the same flooding that scuttled the F1 Grand Prix at Imola – the company has much to look forward to in the coming year with the launch of the new Revuelto and its LMDh car entering WEC and IMSA competition next year.
Unlike its rival down the road in Maranello, racing hasn’t been a part of Lamborghini’s DNA. But what started off with a one-make series that led to a tentative step into GT3 with the Gallardo that was then followed by a headlong dive with the Huracan, is heading to the pinnacle of sports car racing next year with its twin-turbo V8 powered LMDh car.
“When Ferruccio Lamborghini founded the company, he said, ‘I don’t have to prove anything, the racetrack is fine like that,’” explains Lamborghini CEO Stephen Winkelmann. “So it’s the opposite of our main competitor. We decided when we had the facelift of the Gallardo years ago that this would be a good opportunity to start with Super Trofeo, to start with racing again, because we strongly believe that we have to prove something also on the racetrack.
“There is a huge fan community. Besides that, there is a transfer in terms of development. It’s part of the super sports car DNA to go racing – this is the simple fact. And then we had a lot of gentleman drivers who were asking for this. So there were a lot of things coming together. And now step by step, we’re getting nearer to where the air gets thin.”
The Gallardo platform was the basis for the first Lamborghini Super Trofeo car, as well as the bones of the company’s first GT3 car, which was built by Reiter Engineering. With the Gallardo’s successor, the Huracan, Lamborghini Squadra Corse, the manufacturer’s motorsports arm, brought the GT3 program in-house. Now both the Super Trofeo and Huracan GT3 are on the second evolutions, based on the ultimate Huracan, the STO.
Super Trofeo runs three championships – the IMSA-sanctioned North America series, Europe and Asia. The North American season-opener at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca featured 32 entries; similar numbers were featured in the resumption of the Asia series. This weekend’s Europe opener at Paul Ricard will have nearly 50 entries, including five from the Iron Lynx team that is running GT3 programs in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship Michelin Endurance Cup as well as GT World Challenge Europe, and will run the LMDh program in WEC and IMSA next year.
“On the Super Trofeo side, we are doing very well,” says Vice President of Motorsport Maruizio Reggiani. “We have sold out 60 cars that we are delivering worldwide, more than 20 GT3 cars. We also have more requests than what we can offer, honestly. So in terms of sales and business, we are really satisfied.”
The Super Trofeo is very close, and in some parameters exceeds, the Huracan GT3 car. That makes for a good progression from one to the other.
Super Trofeo helped put Lamborghini back on the competition map, and in its current guise, serves as a strong launch pad for drivers aiming to move into GT3 Image by Lamborghini
“When we decided to develop the Huracan Super Trofeo, the target was to develop a car that has to be a sort of scholarship car,” says Reggiani.
“So it is today still the only one-make series car with the same technical contents of the GT3, because we have a car with a very sophisticated aerodynamics like the GT3, with the traction control and ABS adjustable from the steering wheel, with a pure race engine management So, when the gentlemen or young drivers move from the Super Trofeo into the GT3, they feel immediately comfortable and competitive.
“In the last few years we have already experienced in gentleman drivers winning Spa 24 in Pro-Am class, the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, so we we take care about the wishes of our customers and drivers to grow in motorsport. So the Super Trofeo into the GT3 and starting also with the technical support that we offer to them within dedicated engineers and technical support that make the difference when they are on the track.”
In the coming months, the LMDh car that will compete in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTP category and the WEC Hypercar class, making the company’s Le Mans debut a year from now, will get extensive track testing and a full reveal of its specs. LMDh makes sense as Lamborghini is venturing into hybridization with the new plug-in Revuelto that has a 147hp electric motor supplementing the 814hp V12. But while Lamborghini made its name with outrageous V12- and V10-powered sports cars, the basis for the LMDh engine will instead be plucked from the Urus SUV.
“You build the engine not because you want to build the engine, it’s based on on the regulations,” explains Giorgio Sanna, head of Lamborghini Motorsport. “And since LMDh is for sure a more, let me say, efficiency-oriented regulation based on the limit of the maximum power system power output, a V12 simply doesn’t make sense from the technical side even if you would like to. It simply technically doesn’t make sense based on these regulations.”
Iron Lynx will run the car, and Squadra Corse has added some star drivers such as Romain Grosjean and Daniil Kvyat to its roster that already included GT aces such as Marco Mapelli, Andrea Caldarelli, Jordan Pepper and Mirko Bortolotti. While Iron Lynx was most recently associated with another Italian manufacturer, Lamborghini saw it as the perfect partner to moved forward into LMDh. Iron Lynx is under the same ownership umbrella as PREMA, an Italian team that competes across the open-wheel development ladder in Europe as well as in WEC LMP2; PREMA Engineering will provide technical and engineering support for the Lamborghini LMDh car.
“I think this is a wedding that comes from both sides, in the right moment probably from both sides,” says Reggiani. “We are extremely proud about this partnership. We are talking about an Italian team with already strong results in the GT World Challenge. They are young like us, because they created the team basically when Squadra Corse was born. We are looking to put in place a very solid program that pass through the Iron Dames to the GT3 program in the Pro and Pro-AM category and arrive at the pinnacle of our platform with LMDh, without forgetting Super Trofeo.”
For a company that has not had much history in motorsports, Lamborghini has been steadily increasing its presence over the past decade as it moves into sports car racing’s top tiers. It’s partnered with a stellar team, and bolstering its driver roster with some heavy armament. And while Ferruccio Lamborghini’s words about the company not having to prove itself on the racetrack ring true – every sports car the company will build in 2023 and probably well into 2024 is already sold – the company sees value in bolstering its super sports car reputation and using motorsport to improve the product. This bull is ready to charge.
