A One-Two Finish and a Penalty That Complicated the Scorecard
Snetterton delivered the kind of weekend that looks clean in the headline and messy in the details. Barwell Motorsport’s two Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 entries locked out the top two positions in race one, with Lamborghini Factory Driver Sandy Mitchell and co-driver Alex Martin bringing the #78 home for their third win of the season. Rob and Ricky Collard, the father-and-son pairing in the #63, took second. It was Lamborghini’s fourth British GT Championship victory of the season, and the raw pace across both races supported that characterization, even if the stewards would have the final word on Sunday afternoon.
The second race told a more complicated story. Mitchell put the #78 on pole with a last-gasp qualifying lap, and the car led from lights to flag on the road. A post-race time penalty for passing under yellow flag conditions, however, dropped the #78 all the way to 10th. The Collards inherited another second-place result, which improved further when the Ram Racing Mercedes was disqualified from the entire meeting. Two races, two podiums for the #63, and a win plus a penalty-stung 10th for the #78. The weekend crystallized something that has defined the Huracán GT3 EVO2’s final seasons: the car remains genuinely, undeniably fast, and the results keep stacking up even as its confirmed successor takes shape at Sant’Agata Bolognese.
Pace From Friday Through Sunday
The speed was evident before the racing even started. Martin and Mitchell’s #78 topped the opening free practice session on Saturday with a 1m46.108, just seven hundredths of a second clear of the next quickest car. That kind of margin is slim on paper but meaningful in a Balance of Performance-regulated series where the field is deliberately compressed.
Qualifying confirmed both Barwell entries belonged at the front. The Collards put the #63 on pole for race one, while Mitchell grabbed pole for race two on his final flying lap. Lamborghini’s official account describes Snetterton as a historically strong circuit for the Huracán GT3 EVO2, and the weekend did nothing to contradict that.
In the opening race, Rob Collard held the lead off the line despite running side-by-side with Martin into the Wilson hairpin. The two Lamborghinis pulled clear of third place before the mandatory pit stops. Martin closed to within a second of Collard, who was managing a five-second success penalty carried over from the previous round in Belgium. Collard responded by extending his gap to 3.5 seconds, a calculated move that kept both cars nose-to-tail after the pit window closed. Mitchell then stretched the #78’s advantage to over seven seconds in the second stint, with GT4 traffic proving difficult for Ricky Collard to navigate in the #63. Even in a race where both Barwell cars were fighting each other as much as the rest of the field, the Huracán’s underlying pace gave the team room to manage strategy rather than scramble for survival.
A Brake Scare and the Penalty That Changed Race Two
Mitchell mentioned a minor brake problem during the second stint of race one, describing a pedal that felt longer than expected. He managed it by pumping the brake pedal more aggressively, and the issue did not appear to hurt the car’s outright pace. In a GT3 race, a brake feel problem that does not slow the car can still rattle a driver’s confidence, particularly while threading through slower GT4 traffic at close to race pace.
“We had a bit of a brake problem where the pedal seemed a bit long, but it didn’t seem to affect our performance, it was more of a feeling issue which we solved by just pumping the brake pedal more.”
Race two should have been a clean sweep. The #78 led from pole, and a full-course yellow period helped the crew absorb its success penalty during the mandatory pit stop while still returning to the track in the lead. Alex Martin took over from Mitchell for the second stint and brought the car home first on the road. The stewards, however, investigated the #78 for passing under yellow flag conditions and issued a 30-second converted drive-through penalty after the chequered flag, dropping the car from first to 10th.
For Barwell, the silver lining came through the #63. The Collards were promoted to second, and their position improved further when the Ram Racing Mercedes was disqualified from the entire meeting. Two second-place finishes from a single weekend is a strong haul for any championship campaign, and Lamborghini says the results boosted the Collards’ title hopes. The penalty stung, but it could not obscure the underlying truth of the weekend: both Huracán GT3 EVO2 entries had the pace to lead, and the platform’s competitiveness in its twilight seasons remains remarkable.
Barwell Motorsport and Lamborghini: A Partnership That Keeps Delivering
Barwell Motorsport’s relationship with Lamborghini Squadra Corse stretches back to 2016, when the team switched exclusively to the Huracán GT3 platform. Since then, Barwell has functioned as the de-facto factory-assisted Lamborghini squad in the UK, and the results reflect that status. One report indicates Barwell has contributed 29 of Lamborghini’s 32 British GT victories to date, a staggering conversion rate for a single customer team.
The team’s success extends well beyond British GT. According to available reporting, Barwell claimed the Blancpain Endurance Series Am Cup in 2018 and scored Lamborghini’s first outright 24-hour race win at the 2019 Barcelona 24 Hours. They also won the overall GT World Challenge Europe Pro-Am title in 2021. Five British GT Teams’ titles with Lamborghini and three Drivers’ titles paint a picture of a team that consistently extracts the maximum from the Huracán platform.
In a customer racing world where teams frequently switch manufacturers chasing the latest Balance of Performance advantage, Barwell’s loyalty to the Huracán GT3 speaks to the car’s fundamental competitiveness. The team clearly trusts that Squadra Corse delivers a package they can win with, season after season. That trust is not sentimental; it is built on a decade of results that show the Huracán platform rewarding the teams willing to develop it deeply rather than chase novelty.
The Bigger Picture: A Platform Still Winning as Its Successor Takes Shape
Every win the Huracán GT3 EVO2 adds now raises the bar for its confirmed successor. The Lamborghini Temerario GT3, revealed at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed, will replace the Huracán as the brand’s GT3 contender. As Car and Driver reported, the Temerario GT3 is the first race car entirely designed and developed by Lamborghini at Sant’Agata Bolognese, a significant shift from the Huracán program. It will use a modified version of the road car’s twin-turbocharged V8 without the hybrid system, as GT3 regulations require.
That transition from a naturally aspirated V10 to a twin-turbo V8 will fundamentally change the car’s character on track. For teams like Barwell that built their setups, driver coaching, and race strategies around the Huracán’s linear power delivery and distinctive engine behavior, adapting to turbo lag management and a different torque curve will be a real engineering challenge. Road and Track noted that Lamborghini stuck with updated versions of the same basic Huracán race car for a full decade while some rivals, Porsche among them, cycled through multiple entirely new GT3 platforms in the same period.
That longevity is the thread connecting Snetterton to everything that comes next. Barwell’s weekend, penalties and all, is further proof that the outgoing platform remains genuinely quick in its final competitive seasons. The Temerario GT3 arrives carrying enormous expectations precisely because the car it replaces refused to fade gracefully. Whether Squadra Corse’s new contender can match that record from day one is the question that will follow Lamborghini’s customer racing program onto circuits across the world in the seasons ahead.
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