Two Titles, Two Continents, One Car
When Emil Frey Racing’s Giacomo Altoè muscled the #63 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo into fourth place on the final lap at Monza in October 2019, the move clinched more than a single race result. It sealed the International GT Open Drivers’ championship for Altoè and co-driver Albert Costa, capping a season in which Lamborghini simultaneously locked up its second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Constructors’ title at Petit Le Mans through Paul Miller Racing.
Two major championships, separated by an ocean and governed by different regulations, won by different customer teams running the same platform. That breadth tells you something specific not just about the Huracán GT3 Evo, but about the organization behind it. The car worked everywhere, for everyone, in conditions ranging from dry Mediterranean sprints to the ten-hour endurance grind at Road Atlanta. For a brand that only recorded its first GT3 victory at Monza in 2015, the 2019 haul represented a rapid and convincing maturation of Squadra Corse’s entire customer racing operation, the kind of season that transforms a promising program into a proven one.
The GT Open Fight: How Emil Frey Racing Locked It Down
Emil Frey Racing competed with two Huracán GT3 Evo entries across the 2019 International GT Open season, which kicked off at Paul Ricard in late April. The #63 of Altoè and Costa battled the sister #14 car of Mikael Grenier and Norbert Siedler for supremacy all year, and the intra-team rivalry produced a fascinating dynamic: both crews pushed each other relentlessly while collectively ensuring Lamborghini dominated the championship standings.
At the Monza finale, Costa put the #63 on pole for Saturday’s opening race and led the early stages before the mandatory driver swap. Altoè rejoined in fifth and spent the final quarter-hour hounding a McLaren before forcing his way past on the last lap. Grenier and Siedler, meanwhile, finished sixth, a result that secured the Teams’ title a day early. On Sunday, Grenier started the #14 from pole and led until pitting, after which both cars circulated to the finish without drama. Altoè and Costa won their first GT Open title by 12 points over their teammates.
Lorenz Frey, Emil Frey Racing’s Team Principal, acknowledged the tight battle with McLaren throughout the season but pointed to the partnership with Lamborghini as the decisive factor. That a Swiss privateer squad could walk into a new manufacturer relationship and win both the Drivers’ and Teams’ titles in year one speaks volumes about how effectively Squadra Corse packages its support for customer operations. The GT Open result was not a factory team masquerading in privateer clothing; it was a genuine customer success story, and that distinction matters when evaluating the strength of a manufacturer’s racing program.
Petit Le Mans and the IMSA GTD Constructors’ Crown
Across the Atlantic, the story played out differently but ended in the same place. Bryan Sellers, Corey Lewis, and Marco Seefried delivered Lamborghini’s second consecutive IMSA GTD Constructors’ title by winning Petit Le Mans outright in the GTD class, finishing just 1.2 seconds ahead of the Heinricher Racing by MSR Acura.
The season’s full arc made the achievement even more striking. Grasser Racing Team had opened the 2019 IMSA calendar by winning the 24 Hours of Daytona and then the 12 Hours of Sebring, meaning Lamborghini customer teams bookended the year with marquee endurance results. Giorgio Sanna, Head of Squadra Corse, extended congratulations not just to Paul Miller but to Grasser Racing Team, Magnus Racing, and PPM, underscoring the depth of Lamborghini’s North American customer roster.
For prospective customer racing entrants, the 2019 IMSA campaign illustrated a practical truth that reinforced the same lesson emerging from Europe: Lamborghini’s program produced results across multiple teams, not just a single favored operation. That consistency is what separates a manufacturer with a competitive car from a manufacturer with a competitive ecosystem.
Why the Naturally Aspirated V10 Gave Customer Teams an Edge
The Huracán GT3 Evo, developed by Squadra Corse in conjunction with Dallara, is an evolution of the original Huracán GT3. Its naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 defined a fundamentally different character from the turbocharged alternatives fielded by Ferrari and other rivals on the same grids. Under Balance of Performance regulations, raw peak power numbers between GT3 cars tend to converge, so the real differentiator becomes how that power arrives and how predictably the car behaves across varying conditions.
A naturally aspirated engine delivers its torque in a linear, immediate fashion. For gentleman drivers and professional-amateur pairings, which make up the majority of GT3 customer racing grids, that predictability translates directly into confidence. The Huracán GT3 Evo’s aerodynamic package, featuring a revised splitter, carbon fiber hood with enhanced cooling, and new lateral aero elements, also focused on reducing pitch sensitivity, meaning the car’s balance remained more consistent through high-speed direction changes and heavy braking zones. Together, the powertrain and aero philosophy created a car that rewarded clean driving rather than demanding heroics, exactly the quality that allowed such a wide range of customer teams to extract championship-level results.
TopSpeed reports the Huracán GT3 Evo was available as a standalone purchase or as an upgrade kit for existing Huracán GT3 chassis, a detail that reveals Squadra Corse’s customer-first philosophy. Rather than forcing teams into an entirely new car purchase, Lamborghini allowed existing operators to evolve their equipment. That approach kept the installed base competitive and loyal, a strategic advantage when you are trying to fill grids worldwide.
A Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo leads a competitive field of race cars on a damp track during an intense GT Open event.
Competitive Context: Lamborghini Against Ferrari, Porsche, and Mercedes-AMG
GT3 racing in 2019 was a crowded, fiercely competitive arena. Ferrari fielded the 488 GT3 with its twin-turbocharged 3.9-liter V8, Porsche ran the 911 GT3 R, and Mercedes-AMG campaigned the AMG GT3. Each manufacturer brought a different engineering philosophy to the same rulebook, and Balance of Performance adjustments ensured no single car could dominate on raw specification alone. Championships were won on reliability, driver development, team execution, and manufacturer support, precisely the areas where Squadra Corse’s program proved its worth in 2019.
What distinguished Lamborghini that year was geographic breadth. Winning in both European sprint racing and North American endurance formats with genuine customer teams, not factory-entered cars wearing customer livery, demonstrated that the Huracán GT3 Evo’s package worked across different circuits, climates, and team structures. Ferrari and Porsche both ran strong customer racing programs, but Lamborghini’s ability to deliver titles on both sides of the Atlantic in the same season, with the same platform, validated the entire ecosystem Squadra Corse had built in a remarkably short time.
Squadra Corse also operates a GT3 Junior Program, according to TopSpeed, which feeds young talent into its customer teams. This pipeline approach mirrors what the larger motorsport manufacturers do, but for a brand that entered GT3 racing only a few years earlier, establishing a driver development structure this quickly signals genuine long-term commitment rather than a marketing exercise. The 2019 results gave that commitment tangible proof.
From Huracán to Temerario: What the 2019 Platform Proved for the Future
The Huracán GT3 platform served Lamborghini for a full decade. According to Car and Driver, the Temerario GT3 is set to replace the Huracán GT3 Evo 2 as the brand’s factory-backed GT3 effort, and the same report indicates it will be the first race car entirely designed and developed by Lamborghini at its Sant’Agata Bolognese facility. The Temerario GT3 will reportedly feature a modified version of the road car’s twin-turbocharged V8, marking a significant philosophical shift from the naturally aspirated V10 that defined the Huracán racing program.
That transition carries real implications for customer teams. The linear throttle response and predictable torque delivery of the V10 were core advantages that made the Huracán GT3 Evo accessible to a wide range of driver skill levels. Moving to a turbocharged architecture means Squadra Corse will need to ensure the Temerario GT3 retains that accessibility, or risk alienating the customer base that the 2019 championship season helped build.
The dual-title campaign matters in this context because it established the credibility Lamborghini now carries into the turbo era. Squadra Corse can point to a proven track record of supporting diverse customer teams across multiple continents and racing formats. For teams evaluating the Temerario GT3 as their next platform, the question is whether Lamborghini can replicate the Huracán’s adaptability with fundamentally different hardware. The 2019 results suggest the organization behind the car is strong enough to make that transition work, even if the engine philosophy changes entirely.
No specific pricing or delivery timeline for the Temerario GT3 has been confirmed in connection with the 2019 results, and the two programs are separated by several years. What the 2019 season did establish, definitively, is that Squadra Corse’s customer racing infrastructure can deliver championship results at the highest level. That organizational proof is what carries forward, regardless of cylinder count or forced induction.
