The Unconventional AM Champion: Pellegrinelli’s Triumph at Sepang
Simone Pellegrinelli of DTMotorsport was crowned the 2014 Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo Europe AM Champion at the series finale in Sepang, Malaysia, and the way it happened tells you everything about what separates a race winner from a champion. Welshman Jake Rattenbury, racing for Automobili Lamborghini Racing Team UK, won both AM class races that weekend. He dominated on track, crossed the line first twice, and still watched someone else lift the championship trophy.
Pellegrinelli’s title came not from a blaze of glory at the final round but from the patient, season-long accumulation of points across six European rounds. The Sepang event, which also served as a prologue to the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo World Final, merely confirmed what consistent finishes over the preceding five weekends had already built: an insurmountable cushion that no double victory could erase in a single weekend. It is the kind of outcome that makes single-make customer racing fascinating and occasionally maddening, and it anchors the central tension of the entire 2014 AM season: that the smartest campaign can beat the fastest car.
How the Points System Crowned a Champion Without a Race Win
Championship motorsport rewards consistency as much as outright speed, and the 2014 AM title is a textbook case. Lamborghini’s Super Trofeo series distributes points across every round, meaning a driver who finishes on the podium repeatedly can outscore a rival who alternates between brilliant victories and poor results. Pellegrinelli built his advantage over the full calendar, arriving at Sepang with enough accumulated points that even Rattenbury’s perfect weekend could not close the gap.
Lamborghini did not publish the exact points breakdown in its Sepang summary, so the precise margin remains unconfirmed. What the result demonstrates is a structural feature of the championship that separates it from knockout-style competition. For gentleman drivers in the AM class, many of whom balance racing with careers outside motorsport, this format rewards the ability to show up prepared at every round, avoid mechanical failures, and resist the temptation to overdrive into a barrier. Rattenbury proved he was the fastest AM driver at Sepang. Pellegrinelli proved he was the best AM driver across the entire season. The championship correctly distinguished between those two things.
One report indicates Pellegrinelli continued his success into 2015, winning the Pro-Am class at the Nurburgring round of that year’s Super Trofeo season, suggesting the 2014 title was no fluke but part of a sustained competitive arc.
Sepang’s Dramatic Race Day: Crashes, Comebacks, and Costly Mistakes
The Sepang finale reinforced the same lesson that crowned Pellegrinelli: survival matters as much as speed, and the Malaysian heat punished anyone who forgot it.
Mirko Bortolotti of Bonaldi Motorsport had secured pole position, and his teammate David Perel looked set to capitalize. Instead, Perel spun after the mandatory pit stop and crashed into the barriers while leading. A weekend that began with the best possible qualifying result ended with nothing to show for it.
The PRO class delivered similarly cruel fortune. Former class leader Jeroen Mul, racing for Automobili Lamborghini Racing Team Germany, arrived at Sepang holding a five-point advantage. He finished fourth in Race 1 and a dismal 15th in Race 2, watching his championship lead evaporate. Motorsport punishes small errors disproportionately, and Mul’s weekend illustrated this with painful clarity. Where Pellegrinelli had spent an entire season banking points against exactly this kind of disaster, Mul saw months of work undone in two races.
Alberto Viberti of Autocarrozzeria Imperiale provided the weekend’s feel-good counterpoint, taking third overall on the podium in both races. His Race 1 drive stood out as one of the best recoveries of the day: a climb from tenth on the grid to third at the checkered flag. That kind of forward progress through a packed field of identical machinery speaks to racecraft, not horsepower advantage.
In the PRO-AM class, the GRT Grasser Racing Team pairing of Gerhard Tweraser and Tomas Pivoda swept both races. Their teammate Giovanni Venturini managed fourth and sixth place finishes, with his own impressive recovery from tenth at the start of Race 1. GRT Grasser’s double class victory underlined the Austrian team’s strength in a category designed to pair experienced and developing drivers.
Where Super Trofeo Fits in Lamborghini’s Motorsport Pyramid
Pellegrinelli’s title carries weight beyond a single season because of where the AM class sits in Lamborghini’s broader racing structure. Squadra Corse built the Super Trofeo series as the entry point of a deliberate motorsport ladder, and the AM category is its foundation: a space where gentleman drivers compete in identical machinery, develop their skills, and, in some cases, progress toward more demanding categories.
This structure mirrors what rival manufacturers offer. Ferrari runs its Challenge series with a similar class hierarchy, and Porsche’s Carrera Cup provides a comparable single-make pathway. What distinguishes Lamborghini’s approach is the integration of the Super Trofeo with its broader GT racing ambitions. The series, established in 2009, fed talent and operational knowledge into Lamborghini’s GT3 programs.
For prospective customer racers evaluating which manufacturer’s ecosystem to buy into, the quality of AM class competition is a genuine differentiator. A championship where the title fight goes down to the final round, where the eventual champion did not even win a race at the decider, suggests a field deep enough to make every grid position earned rather than bought. That competitive density is exactly what Squadra Corse wants to advertise, and the 2014 season delivered it convincingly.
According to Car and Driver, the current Huracan Super Trofeo Evo2 carries a base price of $360,000 and produces 612 horsepower. The car Pellegrinelli and Rattenbury raced in 2014 was an earlier iteration, but the essential formula remains the same: a stripped, caged Huracan running spec tires, with victory determined by the driver rather than the checkbook.
What Pellegrinelli’s Title Tells Us About Customer Racing Strategy
Championship outcomes like Pellegrinelli’s carry a practical lesson for anyone considering a Super Trofeo campaign. The temptation in amateur motorsport is to chase individual race wins, pushing beyond the limit of car and driver because the adrenaline demands it. The 2014 AM season rewarded the opposite instinct. Pellegrinelli’s DTMotorsport team clearly prioritized finishing positions and mechanical sympathy across the full calendar, and that strategic discipline proved more valuable than Rattenbury’s raw pace at Sepang.
Anyone who follows gentleman driver racing knows this pattern well. The drivers who win championships are rarely the ones who produce the most spectacular individual performances. They are the ones whose cars survive to the finish, whose qualifying laps are clean rather than heroic, and whose race-day decisions minimize risk without sacrificing competitive position. It is a less cinematic form of excellence, but it is excellence all the same.
The Super Trofeo now operates across Europe, Asia, and North America, feeding into a World Final that brings regional champions together. The AM class remains the gateway for drivers entering this world, and the 2014 season, with its paradoxical championship outcome and dramatic final round at Sepang, stands as a compact illustration of why the format works. Pellegrinelli proved that in a well-structured series, the smartest driver can beat the fastest one. For a manufacturer trying to demonstrate that its racing programs reward genuine skill development rather than simply deep pockets, that is precisely the story worth telling.
