Barwell’s Lamborghinis Own Both Races at a Drenched Oulton Park
Barwell Motorsport‘s pair of Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2s swept both one-hour races at the 2024 British GT Championship season opener at Oulton Park on Easter Monday, locking out the top step of the podium in conditions that punished every mistake. Rob and Ricky Collard took Race 1 in the #63 car through persistent heavy rain, while Sandy Mitchell and Alex Martin steered the #78 to victory in a still-wet but gradually drying Race 2.
The result gave Lamborghini its first double victory at the Cheshire circuit since 2017 and, according to Lamborghini, brought the total to eight British GT wins at Oulton Park since the Barwell partnership began in 2016. On a 35-car grid where standing water turned the opening hour into a survival exercise, the two black-liveried Huracáns were the only cars that looked genuinely comfortable.
What makes this worth examining beyond the race report is what it reveals about the Huracán GT3 EVO2 platform in its final competitive seasons, and why Lamborghini’s customer racing model keeps producing results that factory-backed rivals struggle to match consistently.
Why a Wet-Weather Double Win Tells You More Than a Dry One
Dry-weather victories can be flattering. A car with a slight power advantage or a favorable Balance of Performance rating can cruise to the front on a sunny afternoon. Wet conditions strip that away. When standing water covers a circuit, the hierarchy reshuffles around mechanical grip, aerodynamic stability at lower speeds, driver confidence, and how predictably the car communicates through its steering and pedals.
The Huracán GT3 EVO2 is based on the Huracán STO and retains its naturally aspirated V10 engine, a rear-wheel-drive layout, and aerodynamic architecture developed by Lamborghini Squadra Corse in collaboration with Centro Stile. One widely reported technical detail worth noting: the EVO2’s revised airscoop channels airflow directly into the engine via a snorkel, replacing the side air vents found on its predecessor. That change improved intake efficiency but also cleaned up the car’s aerodynamic profile, reducing turbulence around the rear deck. In the rain, where any sudden loss of downforce can send a car spinning, that kind of refinement pays dividends.
Lamborghini’s official account of the weekend confirms the #78 car topped the opening free practice session with a best time of 1m32.942, with the #63 second fastest. Rob Collard then grabbed pole for Race 1 with a 1m35.102 lap, beating the nearest Mercedes by under a quarter of a second. Sandy Mitchell took pole for Race 2. The Huracáns were fastest in every session that mattered.
The powerful rear of the Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo showcases its aggressive aerodynamics on the track.
Race 1: A Penalty Scare, Three Fastest Laps, and a Father-Son Victory
Race 1 carried genuine drama beyond the weather. Rob Collard held the lead from pole through the opening stint, fending off Ian Loggie’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 while Alex Martin kept the #78 in third. A lengthy full course yellow period swallowed Collard’s gap and extended through the mandatory pit windows, meaning both Barwell cars swapped drivers under caution without losing position. Rob handed over to Ricky, Martin handed over to Mitchell.
Then came the stewards’ investigation. The #63 was initially handed a 30-second post-race penalty for an alleged safety car restart infringement, a punishment that would have dropped the Collards from first to 13th. Upon review, the penalty was rescinded because the safety car lights were switched off before Collard exceeded the standard five-car-length gap. It is the kind of regulatory knife-edge that can define a championship opener, and Barwell’s attention to procedural detail saved the result.
Behind the Collards, Mitchell aboard the #78 set three consecutive fastest laps and closed to within seven-tenths of a second of the Mercedes in second, finishing third. The pace was clearly there for both cars. For the Collards, the win carried personal significance: their first domestic GT victory together as a father-and-son pairing.
The victorious drivers celebrate their GT3 Overall Race 1 win at Oulton Park, proudly displaying their trophies.
Race 2: Mitchell Builds the Gap, Then the Safety Car Ends the Show
Race 2 presented a different tactical puzzle. Mitchell started from pole in the #78 but carried a five-second success penalty at the mandatory pit stop, a consequence of the car’s Race 1 podium finish. British GT uses these success ballast mechanisms to keep the championship competitive, forcing front-running teams to build larger margins before the driver change.
Mitchell did exactly that, surging away on the still-wet surface and building a seven-second lead over the nearest McLaren before pitting. A slower-than-expected stop briefly dropped the #78 to second, but Alex Martin reclaimed the lead immediately after rejoining.
“The key to us was to try and pull away and we absolutely nailed the tyre pressures, but I was kind of struggling at the start and Tom [Gamble] was really on me, but then it dried out and we were away after that.”
Mitchell’s words capture something important about the Huracán GT3 EVO2’s character: the car rewarded precise setup work. Getting tire pressures right in mixed conditions is partly science, partly institutional knowledge built over years of running the same platform. A full course yellow for an incident further down the order froze the race before the finish, with barrier repairs keeping the safety car out until the final lap. The chequered flag fell with less than 20 seconds of green running remaining. Anticlimactic, but the result stood.
The Dextra 78 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo blurs past the scenery, demonstrating its incredible speed on the track.
The Barwell Partnership: Eight Years of Institutional Knowledge
Customer racing programs live or die on the relationship between manufacturer and team. Lamborghini’s partnership with Barwell Motorsport, now in its ninth year, represents something competitors find genuinely difficult to replicate quickly. Eight victories at a single circuit since 2016 is not just a stat; it reflects accumulated setup data for Oulton Park’s specific characteristics, its elevation changes, its drainage patterns, its kerb profiles.
Barwell campaigns two Huracán GT3 EVO2s in the 2024 British GT Championship, and the team went on to secure first and second in the drivers’ standings along with the teams’ championship that season, accumulating five victories. For anyone considering the Lamborghini customer racing ecosystem, that kind of consistency matters more than any single weekend result. It signals strong technical support, reliable spare parts supply, and engineering guidance that helps customer teams extract maximum performance.
The related Huracán Super Trofeo Evo2, which Car and Driver tested at its Lightning Lap event, carries a base price of $360,000 and produces an estimated 612 horsepower at 2,950 pounds. The GT3 car operates under different regulations and Balance of Performance constraints, but the underlying platform shares DNA. For prospective customer racers weighing their options, the Huracán ecosystem offers a proven, well-supported entry point with years of competitive validation behind it.
The Temerario GT3 Looms: What This Victory Means for the Transition
Every dominant weekend for the Huracán GT3 EVO2 now carries a bittersweet footnote. The Lamborghini Temerario GT3 is slated to succeed it as the brand’s primary factory-backed GT3 racing platform, and the new car represents a fundamental shift. As Car and Driver reported, the Temerario GT3 is the first race car entirely designed and developed by Lamborghini at its Sant’Agata Bolognese facility. It will use a modified version of the road car’s twin-turbocharged engine, stripped of its hybrid system per GT3 regulations.
That means the naturally aspirated V10 that defines the Huracán’s character on track, the engine note that spectators at Oulton Park could hear through the rain, will eventually give way to a forced-induction unit with a completely different power delivery. For teams and drivers who built their programs around the Huracán’s linear throttle response and predictable torque curve, adapting to turbo lag management and different heat characteristics in wheel-to-wheel combat will be a genuine challenge.
Road & Track noted that Lamborghini stuck with updated versions of the same basic Huracán platform for a full decade while competitors like Porsche cycled through multiple entirely new GT3 designs. That longevity speaks to how fundamentally right the original concept was. The Oulton Park double victory, in the most demanding conditions possible, serves as a compelling final-chapter argument for a platform that earned its reputation the hard way. Lamborghini’s broader motorsport ambitions now span from the SC63 LMDh prototype at the top of the endurance racing pyramid down through GT3 and the one-make Super Trofeo series. The Temerario GT3 will need to match or exceed the Huracán’s customer-racing track record to justify the transition, and weekends like Oulton Park set that bar very high.
What This Means for the Championship and for Lamborghini Fans
A double victory at the season opener gives Barwell Motorsport and Lamborghini a significant early championship advantage heading into the next round at Silverstone. Success penalties will moderate that advantage, as they are designed to do, but the psychological edge of starting a season with maximum points is real. Other teams know the Huracáns are the cars to beat in mixed conditions, and that knowledge shapes strategy decisions for every remaining round.
For Lamborghini enthusiasts who follow the brand’s racing efforts, the takeaway is straightforward: the Huracán GT3 EVO2 remains one of the most competitive and reliable customer GT3 platforms available, even as it approaches the end of its competitive life cycle. The Barwell results validate the engineering, the manufacturer support structure, and the institutional knowledge that Lamborghini’s customer racing program delivers. When the Temerario GT3 eventually takes over, it will inherit not just a championship-winning legacy but a network of teams, engineers, and drivers who expect that level of competitiveness as the baseline.
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