Oregon Team’s Hungaroring Triumph: From Seventh on the Grid to the Championship Lead
Kevin Gilardoni closed on the race leader at roughly a second per lap, made his pass with 19 minutes remaining, and drove away to win by over 20 seconds. That Sunday afternoon at the Hungaroring gave Oregon Team’s #19 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO its first International GT Open race victory and, more consequentially, pushed Gilardoni and co-driver Glenn van Berlo to the top of the championship standings heading into the summer break. Lamborghini says the result marked Squadra Corse’s fourth victory of the 2022 season.
For a customer team that entered the series only this year, leading the points table at the midway mark is a significant statement about both the crew’s racecraft and the platform underneath them. The pair had missed out on a second place last time out at Spa-Francorchamps for the standalone endurance event of the year, so they arrived in Hungary with a point to prove.
The weekend was not clean for the entire Oregon Team operation, though. The sister #63 car of Leonardo Pulcini and Benjamin Hites started Saturday’s opening race from pole and crossed the line first, only to receive a 15-second post-race penalty for a jump-start, dropping the #63 to eighth and promoting the #19 to fourth. On Sunday, the #63 suffered an unscheduled pit stop after just two laps, eventually recovering to 13th. The championship lead belongs to the #19 crew partly because of their own excellent pace and partly because their teammates absorbed every piece of bad luck the weekend had to offer.
The Race in Detail: Van Berlo’s Launch, Gilardoni’s Chase
Sunday’s grid placed the #19 seventh and the #63 eighth, side by side. Van Berlo gained two positions on the opening lap and settled into fifth, keeping the car clean and out of trouble while the field sorted itself out ahead.
At the mandatory pit stop window, Gilardoni took over. Lamborghini says he rejoined in second, just under six seconds behind the leading Kessel Racing Ferrari, as rivals served their handicap time. What followed was a textbook stint of pressure driving. Gilardoni chipped away at the gap, roughly one second per lap, until he was close enough to make his move. With 19 minutes left on the clock, he cleared the Ferrari and pulled away to finish 20.556 seconds ahead of the McLaren of Joe Osborne and Nick Moss.
The margin tells you something important: this was not a last-corner lunge or a fortunate safety car. Gilardoni had genuine pace advantage in the second half of the race, and the Huracán GT3 EVO’s tire management over a long stint played a visible role in that advantage growing rather than shrinking.
Two male race car drivers, G.
The Huracán GT3 EVO: Why This Platform Keeps Winning
Customer GT3 racing is the most direct competitive test a supercar manufacturer faces. Balance of Performance regulations equalize power and weight across brands, so the differentiators become chassis balance, aerodynamic consistency across fuel loads, mechanical reliability over race distance, and how well the car communicates with its driver through the steering wheel rather than through a telemetry screen.
The Huracán GT3 EVO continues to demonstrate strength in exactly those areas. Its naturally aspirated V10 delivers predictable throttle response out of slow corners, a trait that turbocharged rivals can struggle to match when BoP adjustments tighten the field. Teams running the car in GT Open, the Super Trofeo series, and various national championships consistently report that the platform rewards clean, precise driving, which is precisely what Gilardoni demonstrated in his chase stint.
Oregon Team itself graduated to the GT Open from the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, where the Lombardy-based squad won the championship in 2021 according to available reporting. That pipeline, from one-make series to international multi-manufacturer competition, is a core part of Squadra Corse’s customer racing philosophy. The team brought two Huracán GT3 EVO2 cars when it debuted in the GT Open this year, and both have been competitive from the start.
The pink and yellow Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO, number 63, navigates a turn on the track with a scenic background.
Lamborghini vs. the GT Open Field: Where the Battle Stands
Gilardoni and Van Berlo now hold 81 points in the GT Open standings, three clear of the Moss/Osborne McLaren pairing and ten ahead of their own #63 teammates. A three-point margin is razor-thin, especially with three rounds and six races remaining. The McLaren crew finished second on Sunday, so this rivalry will not fade quietly.
The internal dynamic adds another layer. Pulcini and Hites in the #63 car remain the team’s statistically stronger qualifying crew (they started from pole on Saturday), but penalties and mechanical problems have cost them dearly. If the #63 can avoid the misfortune that plagued the Hungaroring weekend, Oregon Team could realistically occupy two of the top three championship positions, giving Lamborghini enormous strategic flexibility in the closing rounds at the Red Bull Ring, Monza, and Barcelona.
Saturday’s opening race was won by a Mercedes-AMG GT3 entry, so the competitive picture is genuinely multi-manufacturer. Lamborghini is not running away with the series. The Huracán GT3 EVO is winning because its drivers and team are executing better at critical moments, not because the car enjoys a performance monopoly. That distinction matters, because it means the championship fight will come down to consistency and strategy over the final stretch.
Championship Outlook: What the Summer Break Means
The series resumes at the Red Bull Ring in Austria during the second weekend of September, followed by Monza and Barcelona to close the 2022 campaign. Monza, in particular, will feel like a home race for Oregon Team and Lamborghini, and the long straights there tend to suit the Huracán GT3 EVO’s power delivery characteristics.
For anyone following Lamborghini’s broader motorsport trajectory, this GT Open campaign carries a longer narrative. The Huracán platform is approaching the end of its competitive life cycle as Squadra Corse develops the next-generation GT3 car. A strong championship result in 2022 would be a fitting send-off for a platform that transformed Lamborghini from a motorsport curiosity into a consistent GT3 contender.
Three points separate the championship leader from a McLaren crew that finished on the podium in the same race Lamborghini won. Every qualifying session and every pit stop execution from September onward will carry title implications. Oregon Team’s maiden victory was dramatic, but the real story will be whether they can defend that lead across three very different circuits.
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