A Win, a Runner-Up, and Six Points Separating Lamborghini from the Championship Lead
Andrea Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli collected a victory and a second-place finish at the Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe round at Misano, piloting the #563 Huracán GT3 for the Orange1 by FFF Racing team. Saturday’s win was the first on European soil for the Chinese-backed outfit. Sunday’s runner-up result behind the #2 Audi of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts left the Italian pairing just six points off the championship lead, according to Lamborghini.
In a series that pits factory-supported entries from Mercedes-AMG, Audi, Aston Martin, and Ferrari against each other in one-hour sprint formats, closing that gap in a single weekend represents serious momentum. Lamborghini entered Misano needing strong results to stay in the title conversation, and the team delivered on both days. Phil Keen and Hiroshi Hamaguchi added to the haul by claiming Pro-Am victory in the #519 FFF Racing Huracán GT3, giving Lamborghini podium presence across multiple categories.
Viewed in isolation, Misano looked like a strong weekend. Viewed through the lens of the full 2019 season, it was the weekend Caldarelli and Mapelli shifted from dark-horse contenders to genuine championship threats, and the Huracán GT3 Evo proved it could fight at the front against machinery from manufacturers with deeper motorsport budgets and longer GT3 histories.
Race 1: Caldarelli’s Opening Lap Aggression Sets Up the Victory
Lamborghini says Caldarelli lined up third on the grid for Saturday’s opener, though one report places him second. Either way, what happened at the first corner removed any ambiguity about his intentions. He drove around the outside of the #76 Aston Martin Vantage to gain a position, then dispatched the #2 Audi at Turn 3 to take the lead outright. By the time the mandatory pit window opened, he carried a gap of nearly two and a half seconds.
A full course yellow erased that advantage, bunching the field and placing the #4 Black Falcon Mercedes directly behind the Huracán. One lap after the restart, Caldarelli pitted and handed over to Mapelli, who inherited the pressure of holding off Raffaele Marciello in the #88 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG. Marciello, one of the most respected silver-rated (at the time) GT drivers in Europe, spent the closing laps applying relentless pressure. Mapelli held firm.
The sister #63 entry of Christian Engelhart and Mirko Bortolotti had a rougher afternoon. Engelhart was spun at Turn 3 by the Audi of Simon Gachet early in the race, dropping the car well down the order. Bortolotti, once strapped in, carved his way back to sixth. That kind of recovery drive rarely earns headlines, but it protected points that could matter when the final championship tally is calculated.
A second safety car period was triggered after the #26 Sainteloc Racing Audi lost a rear wheel, further compressing the field, according to one report. In GT3 sprint racing, these interruptions are where championships are won or lost. The team that manages restarts cleanly and executes pit stops without drama tends to accumulate the consistency that titles demand.
The Lamborghini Huracan GT3, adorned with vibrant racing livery, powers through a corner on the circuit during a Blancpain GT Series race.
Race 2: Pit Lane Drama and a Hard-Fought Second Place
Sunday’s race ran earlier in the day under warmer conditions, which in GT3 racing means different tire behavior, altered grip levels, and a reshuffled competitive order. Bortolotti made a strong start in the #63, running as high as fourth before the team opted for an early pit stop timed to a safety car deployment for track repairs. The strategy was sound. The execution was not: a delayed left front wheel release during the stop destroyed any chance of victory for that car.
Caldarelli took over from Mapelli in the #563 with roughly thirty minutes remaining. A clean, fast pit stop gained the crew a crucial position, and Caldarelli spent the closing phase hunting down the #2 Audi. He closed the gap but ran out of laps, finishing second.
“The podium was our target today. We had a mega pit stop and the car was good towards the end. It’s great to score another podium and collect points for the championship. In the end, we just ran out of time to fight for the win.”
, Andrea Caldarelli
Caldarelli’s candor is revealing. In a championship decided over an entire season, second place behind the car you are chasing in the standings is a result you bank, not one you lament. The team clearly understood the arithmetic: consistent podiums beat occasional wins if the alternative is a DNF or a mid-pack finish caused by overreaching.
The Huracán GT3 Evo as Lamborghini’s Championship Weapon
Lamborghini Squadra Corse built the Huracán GT3 Evo as a purpose-designed customer racing platform, and by 2019 it served as the primary weapon for teams competing in GT3 championships worldwide. The car’s naturally aspirated V10 architecture gave it a distinct character on a grid where turbocharged machinery from Mercedes-AMG and Audi, along with Ferrari’s twin-turbo 488 GT3, represented the dominant engineering philosophies.
GT3 regulations use Balance of Performance adjustments to equalize the field, so raw power figures matter less than how a car deploys its performance across a full stint. The Huracán GT3 Evo’s strengths tended to show in mechanical grip, driver confidence under braking, and the linear throttle response that a naturally aspirated engine provides. For Caldarelli, who built his career around exploiting those characteristics, the car was a known quantity that rewarded precision.
The pairing already had history with the platform. In 2017, Caldarelli, alongside Bortolotti and Engelhart at Grasser Racing Team, won the overall Blancpain GT Series championship in the Huracán GT3, with victories at Monza and Silverstone in the Endurance Cup and a double win at Brands Hatch in the Sprint Cup. That title was secured with a third-place finish in the Barcelona finale, according to one report. Misano in 2019, then, represented the continuation of a proven driver-car partnership rather than a fresh experiment.
For anyone tracking Lamborghini’s customer racing ecosystem, the Huracán GT3 program demonstrated something important: Squadra Corse could build a race car reliable enough and fast enough to win championships across multiple seasons, even as rival manufacturers poured resources into their own GT3 efforts. That consistency of competitiveness is what attracts paying customer teams, and it is ultimately what funds the entire operation.
Championship Math and What Came Next
Lamborghini stated that Caldarelli and Mapelli sat six points behind the championship leaders after Misano. In a sprint championship format where a win and a second place can swing the standings dramatically, that deficit was entirely manageable with multiple rounds remaining.
The next event was scheduled for Zandvoort, two weeks after Misano. Before that, many of the Misano competitors were headed to Belgium for official testing on July 2-3 in preparation for the season’s marquee endurance event: the Total 24 Hours of Spa. For factory drivers juggling sprint and endurance commitments, that mid-season stretch from late June through late July represents the most physically and mentally demanding period on the calendar.
What happened after Misano validates the trajectory. At the Nürburgring round on August 31, Caldarelli and Mapelli led a Lamborghini one-two finish, starting from sixth on the grid and passing Engelhart in the sister #63 car to take the lead. The #563 Huracán GT3 Evo crossed the line nine seconds clear of the Grasser Racing Team entry. Multiple sources confirm that this result moved Caldarelli and Mapelli into the overall championship lead.
The 2019 season ultimately ended with Caldarelli and Mapelli crowned Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe overall drivers’ champions, while Orange1 FFF Racing claimed the teams’ title. That outcome, reported independently, transforms the Misano weekend from a promising mid-season result into a pivotal chapter in a championship-winning campaign.
Orange1 by FFF Racing: A Chinese Team’s European Breakthrough
One detail that most race reports mention but few explore is the identity of the winning team. Orange1 by FFF Racing is a Chinese-backed operation, and the Misano victory represented its first win on European soil. In a paddock historically dominated by European outfits with decades of GT racing experience, that milestone carries real weight.
GT3 customer racing depends on teams purchasing cars, hiring engineers, and funding seasons that can cost millions of euros. For manufacturers like Lamborghini, expanding the customer base beyond traditional European and North American teams is a commercial priority. A Chinese team winning in Europe with a Huracán GT3 demonstrates that Squadra Corse’s support infrastructure, from technical assistance to parts supply to trackside engineering, works for teams regardless of their geographic origin.
FFF Racing’s success at Misano, and across the 2019 season, signaled that Lamborghini’s GT3 customer ecosystem was functioning at a high level. That ecosystem would later evolve as the Huracán GT3 platform gave way to the next generation of Lamborghini competition machinery, but the operational model of factory drivers embedded within well-funded customer teams remained the template.
Lamborghini’s GT3 Position in a Crowded Field
The 2019 Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe grid featured factory-supported entries from Mercedes-AMG, Audi, Aston Martin, and Ferrari, all competing under GT3 regulations designed to keep the field close. Lamborghini occupied a distinctive position: the only manufacturer running a naturally aspirated engine in a field increasingly defined by turbocharging.
That engineering choice carried trade-offs. The V10’s throttle response and sound provided an emotional connection that turbocharged rivals struggled to match, but Balance of Performance adjustments meant Squadra Corse had to optimize every other variable, from aerodynamic efficiency to tire management to pit stop execution, to remain competitive. Misano showed that optimization working in real time. Caldarelli’s opening-lap overtakes in Race 1 exploited the Huracán’s braking stability, while Mapelli’s ability to manage tire degradation in the closing stint kept Marciello’s Mercedes at bay.
For those who follow both road and race cars, the parallel is instructive. Lamborghini built its road car identity around naturally aspirated engines for decades, and the GT3 program extended that philosophy onto the racetrack. The Huracán GT3 Evo proved that a naturally aspirated car could win championships in an era when most competitors had moved to forced induction.
Misano in June 2019 looked like a strong weekend at the time. With the full season’s arc in view, it was the weekend Caldarelli and Mapelli announced they were coming for the title. They got it.
