Penalties, Contact, and a One-Point Championship Lead
- Kevin Gilardoni and Simone Iaquinta (DL Racing) hold a one-point Pro championship lead after splitting victories with Rexal Villorba Corse’s Benedetto Strignano and Nicholas Pujatti across two 50-minute races at Paul Ricard.
- Seven different crews won across four classes, with the Lamborghini Cup producing some of the weekend’s wildest action.
- The Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2‘s naturally aspirated V10 continues to anchor Lamborghini’s one-make series, but the clock is ticking as the Temerario GT3 program advances in the background.
The 2026 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe season opened at Circuit Paul Ricard in southern France with the kind of weekend that reminds you why one-make racing works so well: identical hardware, wildly different outcomes. Strignano and Pujatti claimed the first race after a decisive pass at the final corner with roughly five minutes remaining, while Gilardoni and Iaquinta reversed the result on Sunday. Lamborghini says Gilardoni and Iaquinta’s pole position in race two contributed to their slim one-point advantage heading to Imola next month.
The drama was relentless. Oregon Team’s Silas Lovén Rytter earned the season’s first pole position only to see his #36 Huracán hit with a five-second penalty for gaining an advantage off-track, then a further 40-second sanction for a pit-lane speeding infraction. Those combined penalties dropped Rytter and co-driver Patrik Fraboni from a potential podium to fifth in race one. Strignano, meanwhile, nearly threw away his maiden victory on the final lap after getting tangled with the lapped car of Adalberto Baptista at turn two. The contact damaged the front of his car, but not enough to hand the win to Iaquinta, who had been pressuring him relentlessly through the closing minutes.
For a series that fields gentlemen drivers alongside seasoned professionals, the opening weekend delivered a surprising amount of attrition. VSR debutant Finley Green retired after losing a wheel following second-lap contact. Jerzy Spinkiewicz (UNIQ Racing), returning after an injury that sidelined him for the final two rounds of 2025, lost his rear wing after hitting the tyre barriers exiting turn seven. The multi-class structure means incidents ripple unpredictably through the field, and Paul Ricard proved that in full.
Race-by-Race: How Each Class Played Out
Pro Class
Race one belonged to Strignano and Pujatti, but only after the Rexal Villorba Corse crew climbed from third before the pit stops. Strignano executed a late dive to the inside of the final corner to seize the lead, then spent the remaining laps defending from Iaquinta. Salonen and Tuomaala completed the podium in third. Race two flipped the script: Iaquinta took the lead from Pretorius a few laps in at the entry to turn eight and held it through the pit window. After the stops, Gilardoni pulled clear for a comfortable win by just under five seconds. Rytter and Fraboni recovered from a poor opening stint to salvage third.
Gilardoni’s previous overall victory in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe came at Spa in 2021, making this a meaningful return to the top step. Iaquinta reportedly missed the first few days of pre-season testing due to the flu, which makes the pair’s combined results even more impressive.
Pro-Am Class
Anthony Pretorius and Bronislav Formánek (Mičánek Motorsport) were the class of the Pro-Am field, taking both wins. In race one, Pretorius demonstrated superior pace in the closing laps, overtaking Paolo Biglieri with just two minutes on the clock. Pietro Perolini and Josef Knopp finished second, with Biglieri and Marzio Moretti third. The second race saw Formánek and Pretorius repeat the result while also finishing a superb second overall. Sportscar365 reported that Jonathan Cecotto’s #31 Invictus Corse car dropped significantly after rookie Sergei Astafjev took over in race one, finishing a distant 21st and outside the Pro-Am top six.
Am Class
Grzegorz Moczulski (GT3 Poland) and Stéphane Lemeret with Rodrigue Gillion (CMR) split the Am victories. Mičánek Motorsport’s Renaud Kuppens and Jakub Knoll had a weekend to forget: they retired late in race one (though they were still classified second) and suffered a puncture in race two following contact from Rogério Grotta at the chicane.
Lamborghini Cup
This was arguably the most entertaining class all weekend. Race one saw five cars separated by just over two seconds in the closing laps before debutants Nina Østergaard and Peder Møller Demant (DC Motorsport) pulled away for their first victory. Philip Tang inherited third after last-lap contact between Francesco Turzo and Holger Harmsen. Race two was equally chaotic: Turzo led into the final lap only to be tagged by Donovan Privitelio at turn five. The Privitelio family pairing (Rexal Villorba Corse) held on for the win despite the contact, with Claude-Yves Gosselin and Baptista completing the podium.
The Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2: A Naturally Aspirated Racer in Its Final Act
The Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 remains the sole machine on the grid, purpose-built for Lamborghini’s dedicated one-make racing series. It is a track-focused, race-ready evolution of the production Huracán, and it is not street-legal. One web source reports the car is powered by a 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 producing between 610 and 620 horsepower at 8,000 to 8,250 rpm, channeled through a six-speed sequential X-Trac gearbox to the rear wheels. The dry weight sits at approximately 1,270 kg.
The EVO2’s aerodynamic package represents the most refined version Squadra Corse has developed for the one-make series. The front end features redesigned light clusters and a pronounced lip inspired by the road-going Huracán STO, along with “air curtain” intakes that optimize airflow and downforce. Carbon fiber is used extensively across the bodywork. One historical article from Autoblog characterizes the Huracán Super Trofeo EVO as representing Lamborghini’s “golden era” of naturally aspirated racing, a description that feels increasingly poignant as the brand moves toward hybrid and turbocharged powertrains for its next generation of competition cars.
The multi-class structure (Pro, Pro-Am, Am, Lamborghini Cup) is one of the series’ underappreciated strengths. It allows a wide range of driver experience levels to compete in identical machinery, which means the racing is genuinely close at every level. The Lamborghini Cup battles at Paul Ricard demonstrated this perfectly: five cars within two seconds of each other, with outcomes decided by late-race contact and last-lap lunges rather than outright pace advantages. For anyone considering entry into competitive motorsport with a Lamborghini badge on the nose, Super Trofeo remains the most accessible and structured pathway Squadra Corse offers.
From Huracán to Temerario: What Super Trofeo Tells Us About Lamborghini’s Motorsport Future
Every lap the Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 completes in 2026 carries a quiet subtext. One report indicates the Huracán was succeeded by the plug-in hybrid Temerario in 2025 on the road car side, and the competition program is following a parallel trajectory. Autoblog reported that the Temerario GT3, which reportedly debuted at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed, is Lamborghini’s first competition car fully designed, developed, and built in-house. That distinction matters: previous Lamborghini GT3 cars involved external partners in the development process.
The Super Trofeo series has always served as more than just a customer racing program. It is the proving ground where Squadra Corse refines its understanding of tire management, driver coaching, and race operations at scale. The lessons learned from running grids of 20-plus identical cars across six European rounds, plus the World Finals, feed directly into how Lamborghini approaches its GT3 and GT racing programs. When the Temerario eventually replaces the Huracán in this series (a transition that seems inevitable, though Lamborghini has not announced specific timing), the operational infrastructure built over more than a decade of Super Trofeo competition will be ready.
For teams currently invested in the Huracán platform, this transition means adapting to an entirely new powerband, different weight distribution, and the complexities of hybrid or turbocharged power management in wheel-to-wheel racing. The current EVO2’s naturally aspirated V10 delivers its power in a linear, predictable fashion that rewards driver skill and consistency. Whatever replaces it will demand a different kind of expertise from both drivers and engineers.
2026 Season Calendar and What to Watch at Imola
The season reconvenes on May 9-10 at Imola as part of the Lamborghini Arena event. Lamborghini lists the full 2026 calendar as follows:
| Round | Circuit | Dates |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Paul Ricard | April 10-12 |
| 2 | Imola | May 9-10 |
| 3 | Spa-Francorchamps | June 25-27 |
| 4 | Nürburgring | August 28-30 |
| 5 | Barcelona | October 2-4 |
| 6 | Monza | October 21-23 |
| World Finals | Monza | October 24-25 |
Imola will be the first real test of whether Gilardoni and Iaquinta’s slim points advantage is sustainable or simply the product of a strong opening weekend. Pretorius and Formánek look like the team to beat in Pro-Am after their dominant double victory, and the Lamborghini Cup could produce wildly different winners at every round given how closely matched those cars proved at Paul Ricard. The Kuppens and Knoll pairing at Mičánek Motorsport, who suffered a retirement and a puncture across the two races, will be particularly motivated to recover lost ground.
For Lamborghini fans who want to attend in person, the Arena event at Imola typically combines the racing with brand experiences and displays, making it one of the more accessible weekends on the calendar for enthusiasts who want more than just grandstand seats.
Gallery
