Two Wins, Four Podiums, Four Championships
Lamborghini called it a golden weekend, and the numbers backed up the label. Over a single September 2018 stretch, customer teams running the Huracán GT3 delivered two overall victories and four podiums across four different international GT championships, from Shanghai to Donington Park, from Monza to Hockenheim. What would constitute a strong season for some manufacturers arrived in roughly 48 hours.
The headline result came from China. In the Blancpain GT Series Asia at Shanghai, Martin Kodric and Dennis Lind won the second race and led home a FFF Racing Team by ACM one-two finish. Teammates Hiroshi Hamaguchi and Marco Mapelli finished just 1.2 seconds behind, a gap tight enough to suggest either genuine team orders or two crews pushing each other to the limit. Kodric and Lind carried a 12-point advantage into the Ningbo season finale, while Mapelli and Hamaguchi led the ProAM standings. Two driver pairings from the same team controlling two separate championship categories is not a routine accomplishment.
In England, Barwell Motorsport’s Phil Keen and Jon Minshaw took their #33 Huracán GT3 to victory in the British GT Championship at Donington Park, closing their season on a high note. Italy contributed its own chapter: Imperiale Racing’s Lamborghinis collected two podiums at Monza, with Riccardo Agostini and Rik Breukers finishing third on Saturday and Jeroen Mul and Giovanni Venturini matching that result on Sunday. Jiatong Liang and Raffaele Giammaria also earned their first Pro-Am victory with Imperiale Racing. At Hockenheim, the GRT Grasser Racing Team’s #82 Lamborghini secured second place in the final ADAC GT Masters race of the season.
Customer Racing as Brand Currency
A weekend like this invites a question that rarely gets asked amid the podium celebrations: why does Lamborghini invest so heavily in making sure independent teams can run these cars competitively in the first place?
The answer lies in what customer racing programs actually represent. They function as connective tissue between a supercar brand’s marketing department and its engineering credibility. When a privateer team like Barwell Motorsport or Imperiale Racing wins with a Huracán GT3, the car earns its reputation in a context Lamborghini cannot fully control. The teams buy or lease the cars, hire their own drivers, manage their own strategy, and succeed or fail on their own terms. Squadra Corse provides technical support and parts, but the results belong to the customers. That independence is precisely what makes the victories persuasive.
For prospective buyers sitting in a Lamborghini dealership, the calculation is more intuitive than it might seem. A road-going Huracán shares its fundamental architecture with a car that wins races against Ferraris, Porsches, and Mercedes-AMGs every weekend. The buyer does not need to understand Balance of Performance regulations or GT3 homologation details to absorb the message: this platform works. As Car and Driver explored in a broader feature on the economics of racing, the old “win on Sunday, sell on Monday” logic has evolved, but the brand-building math still favors manufacturers who show up and compete consistently. Four teams producing results across four countries in one weekend is the kind of evidence that no advertising campaign can replicate.
The Huracán GT3’s Quiet Dominance
The breadth of this weekend’s results reveals something specific about the Huracán GT3 as a racing platform: adaptability. Shanghai, Donington Park, Monza, and Hockenheim present radically different demands. Shanghai’s long straights and heavy braking zones reward power and stability. Donington’s elevation changes and fast corners test mechanical grip. Monza is a slipstreaming battle. Hockenheim blends all of the above. A car that podiums at all four within the same weekend either benefits from a generous Balance of Performance assignment, or its underlying engineering genuinely covers a wide operating window.
The Huracán GT3’s naturally aspirated V10, mounted behind the driver and sending power to the rear wheels through a sequential gearbox, gave customer teams a predictable, responsive powertrain. Turbo lag was not a variable to manage during corner exit. That predictability mattered enormously for the gentleman drivers who populate the Am and Pro-Am categories, where consistent lap times count for more than outright speed.
One report detailed the September 2018 reveal of the Huracán GT3 Evo, an evolution of the original car offered both as a standalone purchase and as an upgrade kit for existing Huracán GT3 chassis. That approach, letting teams protect their initial investment while accessing improved aerodynamics and setup range, illustrates how Squadra Corse thought about the customer relationship. The car was not simply fast. It was designed to be campaigned over multiple seasons without forcing teams to start from scratch, and that philosophy helped explain why so many different squads could extract results from it simultaneously.
Where Lamborghini Stood Against the GT3 Grid
GT3 racing in 2018 was not a Lamborghini benefit series. The grids at Blancpain, British GT, Italian GT, and ADAC GT Masters included factory-backed and customer entries from Ferrari, Porsche, Mercedes-AMG, Audi, McLaren, and Bentley. Balance of Performance regulations exist to equalize the field, and the FIA and SRO adjust them regularly. No single manufacturer can dominate on raw power alone.
What separates the consistent winners from the also-rans in BoP-equalized racing is execution: car setup, driver coaching, pit stop efficiency, reliability, and the quality of factory support reaching the customer teams. Lamborghini’s ability to place multiple cars on the podium across four different series, with four different teams, suggests that Squadra Corse’s support infrastructure was functioning at a high level. A single team winning a single race can be attributed to circumstances. Four teams producing results across four countries in one weekend points to something systemic.
Ferrari’s 488 GT3 and Porsche’s 911 GT3 R were the Huracán’s most persistent rivals during this period, each with deep customer racing networks of their own. Lamborghini’s edge was often less about outright pace and more about the accessibility of its program. Teams reported that the Huracán GT3 was relatively straightforward to set up and forgiving at the limit, qualities that matter when your driver roster includes wealthy amateurs alongside seasoned professionals.
From the Huracán’s Legacy to What Comes Next
Viewed in isolation, a single weekend of GT3 results is a snapshot. Viewed in the context of the Huracán GT3’s full career, it becomes one data point in a remarkably long winning streak. One source reports that across its GT3, GT3 Evo, and GT3 Evo2 iterations, the Huracán platform accumulated 96 titles and 187 race victories globally, a record that includes three consecutive GTD class wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona from 2018 through 2020.
That legacy now carries specific weight as Lamborghini transitions its customer racing program to the next generation. As Jalopnik reported, the Temerario GT3 was unveiled at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed, stripped of its road car’s hybrid system and built around a twin-turbocharged V8. The successor faces the unenviable task of matching the Huracán’s record while introducing a fundamentally different powertrain character. For teams and drivers who built their programs around the Huracán’s naturally aspirated response and predictable power delivery, the transition means adapting to turbo lag, different weight distribution, and the complexities of forced induction in close racing.
Lamborghini has not disclosed how many existing Huracán GT3 customers plan to transition to the Temerario platform, or what the upgrade path will look like. What the company’s broader motorsport trajectory does confirm is a pattern of investing in customer racing as a core brand activity rather than a marketing afterthought. The golden weekend in September 2018, with its four teams and four championships and two overall victories, was one expression of that commitment. Whether the Temerario can sustain it will define the next chapter of Lamborghini’s racing identity.
For anyone watching the used Huracán GT3 market, the practical takeaway is straightforward: these cars proved themselves across hundreds of races on every continent. A well-maintained example with documented Squadra Corse support history represents one of the more proven GT3 platforms of its generation, and the transition to the Temerario may create buying opportunities as teams begin to turn over their fleets.
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