A Maiden WEC Podium, a Maiden Pole, and a DNF in the Same Weekend
Spa-Francorchamps handed Lamborghini a weekend that will look strange in the record books: two firsts and a failure, all on the same Sunday. Taken together, they reveal a brand whose endurance racing program is maturing fast in GT3 while still learning hard lessons at the Hypercar level.
The No. 60 Huracán GT3 EVO2, shared by Franck Perera, Claudio Schiavoni, and Matteo Cressoni, climbed from 18th on the grid to third in the LMGT3 class, giving Lamborghini its first podium finish in the FIA World Endurance Championship. One grid row ahead in spirit, the all-female Iron Dames crew of Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey, and Michelle Gatting had already written a new page by qualifying on pole, the first time a Lamborghini sat at the front of a WEC grid. Bovy’s commanding qualifying lap and the No. 60’s charge through the field proved the Huracán GT3 EVO2 belongs at the sharp end of the world’s premier sportscar series.
The Hypercar side told a different story. The No. 63 SC63, driven by Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli, and Daniil Kvyat, was forced into the garage around the halfway mark with a suspension problem and did not return. It was the first race the SC63 failed to finish since Lamborghini entered the top class. That contrast, between a GT3 car that clawed 15 places and a prototype that could not see the checkered flag, frames the tension at the heart of Lamborghini’s endurance campaign heading into Le Mans.
How the No. 60 Fought Through the Field
Starting 18th in a six-hour race is not usually the setup for a podium story, yet the Iron Lynx crew turned chaos into opportunity at every turn. Schiavoni opened the stint cleanly, keeping the car on the lead lap through a sequence of full-course yellows and a lengthy virtual safety car. Cressoni continued to bring the yellow-and-black Huracán up the order, edging toward the top ten before handing over to factory driver Perera.
Strategy played a decisive role. Perera began his stint just one lap before the race was red-flagged following a major crash between a Cadillac Hypercar and an LMGT3 BMW, a stoppage that lasted nearly two hours. When the field restarted with the lost time restored, Perera found himself in third and then briefly moved into the lead after passing both a Porsche and a McLaren. A final-lap fuel stop was needed to get the car to the checkered flag, but the margin held.
Third place after starting near the back of the class grid, through a disrupted race and a last-lap pit visit, is the kind of result that builds confidence in both the car and the team’s decision-making under pressure. More importantly for Lamborghini’s broader program, it demonstrated that the Huracán GT3 EVO2 has the pace and the strategic flexibility to convert difficult circumstances into meaningful points.
Iron Dames: From Pole to a Painful Fifth
Bovy qualified the No. 85 on pole with a commanding margin, making her the first driver to put a Lamborghini at the top of a WEC qualifying session. On home soil at Spa, she converted that into a dominant opening stint, building a gap of more than 30 seconds before the first pit stop. The pink Huracán led for significant stretches of the race, and Frey fought her way back to the front after a brief drop during the driver changes.
Then the red flag effectively reset the field, erasing the advantage the Iron Dames had built on pure speed. When Gatting took over for the final stint, a problem during the last pit stop cost critical time, and the No. 85 dropped from a podium position to fifth. For a team that controlled the race for so long, fifth stings.
Yet the raw pace Bovy, Frey, and Gatting showed across qualifying and the opening hours confirmed something the No. 60’s podium also underlined: the Huracán GT3 EVO2 can lead outright in the WEC’s GT3 category, not just compete. Two Lamborghinis running at the front of the same race, one from pole and one from 18th, is the strongest evidence yet that the platform is genuinely competitive against Porsche, Ferrari, McLaren, and the rest of the LMGT3 field.
SC63 Hypercar: Pace in Practice, Pain in the Race
The SC63’s weekend was not without promise before the retirement. Kvyat placed third quickest in the opening free practice session, only a tenth behind second place, a flash of single-lap speed that hinted at the car’s potential. The SC63 qualified 17th in the Hypercar class and started 16th after a penalty to another competitor.
In the race, Kvyat and Caldarelli ran cleanly through the opening hours and briefly fought for position inside the top 15. Then, approaching the halfway point, a suspension issue appeared at the start of a lap. Caldarelli initially suspected a puncture, but the damage was more fundamental. The SC63 was wheeled into the garage, and repairs proved impossible.
Lamborghini CTO Rouven Mohr acknowledged the result fell short of expectations but pointed to the specific characteristics of Spa and the team’s lack of prior testing at the circuit. Squadra Corse treated the weekend as a data-gathering exercise, which is the diplomatic way of saying the SC63 is still finding its feet against established Hypercar programs that arrived at Spa with years of development laps in the bank. Where the Huracán GT3 EVO2 proved it can thrive under pressure, the SC63 showed it still needs mileage before reliability matches ambition.
Le Mans Next: Two SC63 Entries and a Lot to Prove
Lamborghini confirmed the SC63 will make its maiden official top-flight appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, scheduled for June 15-16. The No. 63 will run with Bortolotti, Kvyat, and Edoardo Mortara, while a second entry, the No. 19 that typically competes in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup, joins the effort with Caldarelli, Romain Grosjean, and Matteo Cairoli.
Running two cars at Le Mans doubles the data collection and the exposure, but it also doubles the risk. A suspension retirement at a six-hour race is a setback; at a 24-hour race, it could be a headline for the wrong reasons. The Spa weekend showed the SC63 can produce single-lap speed in practice. Whether the car can sustain that pace over a full day at La Sarthe is the question Lamborghini needs to answer next.
That question is really the thread connecting everything that happened at Spa. The Huracán GT3 EVO2 has crossed a threshold: pole positions and podiums confirm the car is a genuine contender in LMGT3, and both Iron Lynx and the Iron Dames proved they can extract results under the most chaotic conditions. The SC63 has not yet reached that point. Spa delivered proof of concept on one side of the garage and a reminder of how far the other side still has to travel. Le Mans will tell us whether the gap is closing.
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