Antinucci Controls the COTA Opener from Lights to Flag
Richard Antinucci, the 2015 Super Trofeo North America Pro Driver Champion, opened the 2017 season at Circuit of The Americas with the controlled authority of a driver who understood the Huracán Super Trofeo better than almost anyone on the grid. Piloting the No. 16 Change Racing entry for Lamborghini Carolinas, Antinucci built an early gap over the No. 50 US Racetronics car of Edoardo Piscopo and Taylor Proto, lost two seconds when he accidentally hit the pit lane speed limiter on a straight, and then simply managed the margin for the remaining laps. His own post-race assessment was telling: “Then I was cruising. I was told he was catching, but I was really cruising.”
Behind him, the No. 1 Prestige Performance car of Trent Hindman and Riccardo Agostini climbed from a fifth-place grid slot to finish second overall. Agostini did the early work, moving up to third before the mandatory pit stop, and Hindman, who had already raced in a separate event that same day, completed the job by clearing the pole-sitting US Racetronics entry. Super Trofeo newcomer Austin Versteeg, just 17 years old and making his first sportscar start, rounded out the overall podium in the No. 7 DXDT Racing car representing Lamborghini Dallas. Versteeg dropped as low as fifth in the opening laps before battling back to third by Lap 17, claiming the Pro-Am class victory in the process.
Antinucci went on to sweep the entire COTA weekend with two Pro class wins, a result that, viewed with the benefit of hindsight, foreshadowed a career that would culminate in the 2019 Super Trofeo North America Pro class championship. The dominance was not a fluke. It was a pattern, and the car beneath him was the constant.
Class Battles and Unlikely Backgrounds
What made the COTA opener more than a one-driver story was the range of competitors the Huracán Super Trofeo attracted to the same grid. Ashley Freiberg, making her series debut in the No. 30 DAC Motorsports entry for Lamborghini Palm Beach, qualified sixth and finished third in the Pro category, gaining positions after her pit stop to land in the top five overall. For a first race behind the wheel of the Huracán Super Trofeo, that kind of composure under the Texas heat stood out.
The Amateur class produced its own storyline. Patrice Brisebois, a former Stanley Cup winner who pivoted from professional hockey to customer racing, repeated as an Amateur class victor after his inaugural Super Trofeo North America win in 2016. Brisebois drove the opening stint of the No. 18 DAC Motorsports car before handing over to teammate Emmanuel Anassis, who inherited second in class and took the lead on Lap 18 after a prolonged fight with Brian Theines in the US RaceTronics No. 17. The LB Cup went to Paul Terry in the No. 62 DXDT Racing entry, who navigated a chaotic moment when two cars immediately behind him spun simultaneously.
A former NHL defenseman racing wheel to wheel with prototype-trained teenagers and seasoned pros tells you something about the accessibility Lamborghini built into this series. The classes, Pro, Pro-Am, Amateur, and LB Cup, exist precisely to create competitive racing at every experience level, and the COTA opener delivered on that premise across all four. That breadth of talent was not incidental. It was the product of a car and a series structure designed to welcome different kinds of drivers while demanding the same commitment from all of them.
The Huracán Super Trofeo: V10 Race Car with Production DNA
Every car on the 2017 grid ran the same fundamental package, and that package is worth understanding because it explains why the series worked as both a competitive platform and a proving ground. Lamborghini says the Huracán Super Trofeo produces 620 horsepower from a V10 direct injection engine derived from the road car, managed by a MoTeC control unit tuned specifically for competition. The frame is a hybrid carbon and aluminum construction, with modified front geometry to accommodate a larger radiator and revised rear packaging for the racing gearbox, which also improves aerodynamic efficiency.
The MoTeC unit deserves attention. In the road-going Huracán, engine management comes from the Volkswagen Group’s shared electronics architecture. Swapping to MoTeC for the race car gave Squadra Corse the freedom to calibrate fueling, ignition, traction control, and data logging independently, without the constraints of a platform shared with Audi. That distinction allowed Lamborghini to tune the V10’s character for racing without compromising the production car’s emissions or drivability targets.
Versteeg’s comments after the race highlighted what the car demands of its drivers. He described the transition from prototype racing as significant: managing pit stops, full fuel loads, and tire degradation over 50 minutes of green-flag racing required a different skill set. The Huracán Super Trofeo is not a stripped road car with a roll cage. It is a purpose-built race car that happens to share its engine block and basic architecture with the car you can buy at a dealership, and the gap between those two things defines the series’ appeal. Enthusiast forums consistently reflect admiration for the Super Trofeo’s raw, uncompromised character, with owners of the road-going Super Trofeo Stradale variants often describing them as among the most visceral Lamborghinis ever produced.
A Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo race car with black, white, and green livery navigates a turn on the racetrack.
Why Super Trofeo Exists: Lamborghini’s Motorsport Ladder
Customer racing programs sell cars, develop technology, and build brand equity in ways that press events and social media campaigns cannot replicate. Lamborghini’s Super Trofeo series, which launched in 2009 with the Gallardo LP 570-4 Super Trofeo, functions as the entry point of a motorsport ladder that extends upward through GT3 competition and, for the most committed teams, into global endurance racing. The 2017 COTA opener illustrated exactly how that ladder works in practice: Antinucci sharpening his craft toward a future championship, Versteeg learning sportscar fundamentals, Brisebois competing at a level that matched his ambition.
The structure reinforces that purpose at every level. A driver or team owner buys a turn-key race car, enters a well-organized series with professional broadcast coverage, and competes against identical machinery on circuits that range from COTA and Road America to Imola. Lamborghini says the 2017 North American schedule included Watkins Glen, VIRginia International Raceway, and Laguna Seca before the season finale at Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Italy. That final round, the World Finals at Imola, brings together regional champions from North America, Europe, and Asia for a single combined event, giving the series a global dimension that few one-make programs can match.
Live streaming on squadracorse.lamborghini.com, motortrendondemand.com, imsa.tv, and radiolemans.com, combined with tape-delayed primetime broadcasts on CBS Sports Network, gave the series a media footprint that exceeded what most customer racing programs offered in 2017. Lamborghini clearly understood that the value of putting customers in race cars diminishes if nobody watches them race.
For buyers considering entry, Lamborghini does not publicly list a single price for participation. What the series structure confirms is a tiered approach: the car purchase, seasonal support packages, and race-by-race logistics are handled through Squadra Corse and authorized teams. Competitive participation in any factory-backed one-make series at this level represents a serious financial commitment, though Lamborghini’s program is structured to provide professional-grade support in return.
Competitive Context: Where Super Trofeo Fits Among Rival Series
Lamborghini did not invent the one-make customer racing concept. Ferrari’s Challenge series and Porsche’s various Cup programs predate the Super Trofeo, and both carry enormous brand cachet. What Lamborghini brought to the format was a more recent entry point, which allowed the company to design the program around modern broadcast expectations and a global finals structure from relatively early in its life.
The competitive question most enthusiasts ask is how the Huracán Super Trofeo compares to its rivals as a racing platform. Specific cross-series performance comparisons are difficult because balance of performance regulations, tire compounds, and track configurations vary. What can be said is that the Huracán’s naturally aspirated V10 gave the Super Trofeo car a character that drivers consistently praised: linear power delivery, a predictable chassis built on that hybrid carbon and aluminum structure, and an engine note that made the series a spectator event in its own right.
The deeper competitive advantage for Lamborghini, though, was the ladder itself. Drivers who proved themselves in Super Trofeo could move into Lamborghini’s GT3 program, which by 2017 was already fielding the Huracán GT3 in international endurance racing. That pathway from customer series to professional GT competition gave the Super Trofeo a purpose beyond entertainment. According to Autoblog, Lamborghini later debuted the Temerario GT3 at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed as the company’s first competition car fully designed, developed, and built in-house. The Super Trofeo series, across its Gallardo and Huracán generations, provided the operational infrastructure and driver relationships that made such an ambitious in-house program conceivable.
What the 2017 Opener Tells Us About the Huracán’s Racing Legacy
Viewed in isolation, Race 1 at COTA was a clean, professional event dominated by an experienced driver in a well-prepared car. Viewed as part of the Huracán Super Trofeo’s broader arc, it marked the middle chapter of a platform that proved extraordinarily durable in competition. The Huracán served as the backbone of Lamborghini’s customer racing program for nearly a decade, from its introduction at Pebble Beach in 2014 through multiple EVO updates.
That longevity matters now more than ever. According to Autoblog, low-mileage Huracán Super Trofeo EVO examples now appear on collector car platforms, their motorsport pedigree and naturally aspirated V10 engines making them appealing to a market that increasingly values analog racing machinery. The 2017 COTA race represents exactly the kind of competitive provenance that gives those cars their collector credibility.
The practical takeaway from the season opener is this: the Super Trofeo series did what it was designed to do. It gave drivers like Antinucci a platform to build championship careers, offered newcomers like Versteeg a structured environment to learn sportscar racing, attracted unlikely competitors like Brisebois who enriched the grid, and provided Lamborghini with a visible, competitive showcase for the Huracán’s engineering. The Temerario will eventually inherit that role. Whether it can replicate the Huracán’s decade of dominance in customer racing remains one of the more interesting open questions in Lamborghini’s competitive future.
