A Pit-Stop Scramble Keeps the PRO Championship Alive
Giacomo Altoè and Daniel Zampieri won Race 2 of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe‘s fifth round at Nürburgring, and the margin that decided it could be measured in meters rather than seconds. Karol Basz led from pole through the opening stint with Zampieri glued to his gearbox. When Vito Postiglione took over the Imperiale Racing car from Basz during the pit window, lapped traffic slowed his out-lap just enough for Altoè to emerge fractionally ahead. He held that sliver of advantage to the checkered flag.
The result matters well beyond Antonelli Motorsport’s celebrations. Basz and Postiglione still lead the PRO standings after collecting their fourth win of the season in Race 1, but Altoè now sits only 10 points behind with a full double-header remaining. This was the second victory of the season for Altoè and Zampieri, and the third overall for Altoè, who had also won at Monza. The pair had not stood on the podium since the Silverstone round in May, making the breakthrough at Nürburgring all the more significant for their title hopes.
Niels Lagrange completed the Race 2 podium for Leipert Motorsport after taking over from Frederik Schandorff, while Joffrey De Narda and Kikko Galbiati of Antonelli Motorsport finished fourth, having already claimed second in Race 1. Lamborghini confirmed that every championship class in the Super Trofeo Europe remains undecided heading into the mid-November finale at Vallelunga, which will run during the same week as the 2018 World Final. Four classes, four open title fights, and a two-month break for everyone to think about it.
The Altoè Blueprint: Super Trofeo as a Career Launchpad
Giacomo Altoè’s name on the Nürburgring results sheet carries more weight when you trace what came after this 2018 season. The young Italian from Adria, son of a rally driver and the only one of five racing brothers still competing professionally in GT3, turned 2018 into a breakout year. At 17, he won the Italian GT Championship in GT3, the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe championship, and the Super Trofeo World Finals. By 2019, after adding the International Open GT Championship, he signed as a Lamborghini factory driver at 18.
That trajectory illuminates exactly what the Super Trofeo series is designed to produce. Altoè went on to race in the Fanatec GT World Challenge America with TR3 Racing and the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup with Emil Frey Racing, becoming a fixture in Lamborghini’s GT3 customer team lineups. He later expanded his repertoire to include the Ferrari 296 GT3 platform, winning the Ferrari Challenge Europe Championship and competing in events like the Gulf 12 Hours. His willingness to cross manufacturer boundaries is notable, but the foundation was built entirely within Lamborghini’s single-make ecosystem.
The Super Trofeo pathway strips away the variable of machinery, since everyone races identical Huracán Super Trofeo cars, and puts the emphasis squarely on racecraft, consistency, and the ability to work with engineers and gentleman-driver teammates. Altoè is known within the paddock for his skill in helping teams with car setup, a trait that factory programs value enormously and that the Super Trofeo format specifically cultivates. For aspiring professional drivers, this remains one of the most direct routes into factory consideration.
Four Classes, Four Stories: PRO-AM, AM, and Lamborghini Cup at Nürburgring
While the PRO fight grabbed headlines, the PRO-AM, AM, and Lamborghini Cup categories each carried their own championship dramas into the Nürburgring weekend, and all three left Germany with their title battles still unresolved.
Dennis Lind and Simon Larsson of Target Racing took their second PRO-AM victory of the year, following their win at Spa. They finished fifth overall, a result that demonstrates the caliber of driving in this class. Behind them, Emanuele Zonzini and Lorenzo Bontempelli of Iron Lynx recorded their sixth consecutive podium and seventh overall, closing the gap to PRO-AM leaders Loris Spinelli and Juan Perez. That kind of consistency over a full season, from a pairing that includes a gentleman driver, speaks to the quality of preparation Iron Lynx brings to its customer programs.
The AM category produced the weekend’s most dominant performance. VS Racing’s Andrej Lewandowski and Philipp Wlazik swept both races at Nürburgring, extending Lewandowski’s championship lead to 24 points over Florian Scholze and Manuel Lauck of Dörr Motorsport. Wlazik, racing on home soil, described the double win as exactly what the team needed. Davide Roda, returning after missing the Spa round, qualified fastest and led until the pit stops before eventually finishing on the podium.
Gerard Van der Horst claimed his third Lamborghini Cup victory of the season, adding Nürburgring to previous wins at Silverstone and Misano. Oliver Engelhardt of Dörr Motorsport and Tim Richards of MTech rounded out that podium. Van der Horst now holds a commanding position in the Lamborghini Cup standings, though even this title remains mathematically open heading to Vallelunga.
Lamborghini’s Motorsport Ladder: Where Super Trofeo Fits
Established in 2009, the Super Trofeo series occupies a specific and strategically important rung in Lamborghini’s motorsport architecture. It sits below the full GT3 programs but serves as the primary feeder system for them, giving Squadra Corse a controlled environment to evaluate drivers, teams, and operational processes. The championship culminates each year in the World Finals, where competitors from the European, North American, and Asian series converge to crown a global champion.
The identical-car format reduces costs compared to open-specification GT racing, while the multi-class system accommodates everyone from aspiring professionals to experienced amateur racers who want competitive wheel-to-wheel action in a factory-supported environment. Running alongside major events like the GT World Challenge Europe gives Super Trofeo drivers exposure to the paddock culture and operational standards of top-tier GT racing, bridging the gap between single-make competition and the broader GT3 world.
Drivers who prove themselves in the single-make series are the natural candidates for factory-supported GT3 seats, and teams that build institutional knowledge within the Super Trofeo framework often transition into GT3 customer programs. Ferrari operates a comparable ladder through its Ferrari Challenge series, and Porsche runs the Carrera Cup as its own single-make proving ground. The key difference for Lamborghini is scale: the Super Trofeo remains more intimate than those rival programs, which can be either a limitation or an advantage depending on whether you value individual attention over grid size.
Vallelunga and the World Final: What Comes Next
A two-month break now separates the Nürburgring drama from the decisive final round at Vallelunga, scheduled for mid-November. The Italian circuit will host both the Super Trofeo Europe finale and the 2018 World Final during the same week, concentrating the season’s climax into a single, high-pressure event.
The championship math heading into Vallelunga rewards different strategies in each class. Basz and Postiglione carry a 10-point PRO cushion, but a double-header format means Altoè and Zampieri can close that gap with one strong weekend. Lewandowski’s 24-point AM lead looks more comfortable, though a retirement or mechanical issue could change the picture quickly. The PRO-AM and Lamborghini Cup battles fall somewhere between those extremes, with multiple pairings still within realistic striking distance.
The World Final brings together regional champions from three continents, and Squadra Corse typically uses the event to showcase its latest thinking on driver development and competition strategy. If Altoè’s 2018 season proved anything, it is that the Super Trofeo pipeline works. Whether the next driver to follow that path emerges from this year’s field remains to be seen, but the system that produced him will be on full display at Vallelunga.
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