Factory Driver Caldarelli Puts the Revuelto Through Its Paces at Vallelunga, and His Verdict Tells Us More Than the Spec Sheet

Caldarelli at Vallelunga: A Factory Driver’s First Laps in the Revuelto

Before the Lamborghini Revuelto met the international automotive press for its dynamic debut, the car got a shakedown from someone whose opinion carries a different kind of weight. Andrea Caldarelli, one of Lamborghini Squadra Corse’s most decorated factory drivers, took the V12 hybrid around the Autodromo Piero Taruffi at Vallelunga on 28 September 2023, the eve of the car’s first public dynamic appearance.

Professional racing drivers are notoriously hard to impress with road cars. Caldarelli’s pedigree includes winning the GT World Challenge Europe in 2019 and the 24 Hours of Daytona in the GTD category, and he is slated to compete in the 2024 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship with the Lamborghini SC63 LMDh prototype. When a driver who spends his working life at the absolute limit in purpose-built race cars calls a road-legal supercar “truly extraordinary,” the compliment lands differently than it would from a marketing department.

The Revuelto, successor to the Aventador and unveiled during Lamborghini’s 60th anniversary year, is the brand’s first V12 hybrid plug-in High Performance Electrified Vehicle. Sending a factory racer out to validate it publicly, before the press drove it, was a deliberate move: Lamborghini wanted the first dynamic narrative to come from someone who could speak to track behavior with a credibility no journalist review could match at that stage. That choice signals where Sant’Agata Bolognese wants this car’s reputation built: not on a spec sheet, but on the testimony of a driver who knows what genuine performance feels like.

Unpacking ‘Uncommon Power’ and ‘Excellent Drivability’: What Caldarelli Actually Said

Caldarelli’s comments deserve careful parsing because they address the exact anxiety that hangs over every new hybrid supercar: does electrification dilute the driving experience, or sharpen it?

“The Revuelto is a truly extraordinary supercar, which is capable of expressing uncommon power but also excellent drivability on the track.”

That pairing of “uncommon power” and “excellent drivability” is the key phrase. The combined hybrid powertrain delivers 1,001 hp (1,015 PS) and 783 lb-ft (1,062 N-m) of torque. Raw numbers like those are easy to print on a brochure. The harder question is whether a driver can access that power progressively and predictably without the car trying to kill them at corner exit. Caldarelli is saying yes.

He also highlighted the contribution of active aerodynamics in cornering, describing the downforce as “impressive.” For a driver accustomed to race cars with massive aero platforms, calling a road car’s downforce impressive is a meaningful statement. The active rear wing, visible in track images deploying under braking and through high-speed corners, appears to be doing real aerodynamic work rather than serving as a styling exercise.

Equally revealing was his praise for the new dual-clutch gearbox, which he called “lightning speed,” and his description of the Revuelto’s response as “super smooth and easy to handle.” The Aventador’s single-clutch automated manual slammed gears with a violence that some owners loved and others merely tolerated. Caldarelli’s description of the new transmission as smooth and easy suggests a fundamental change in how the car communicates with its driver during rapid sequential downshifts in hard braking zones. Coming from a man who races prototypes for a living, “smooth” is not faint praise. It means the engineering disappears, leaving only the driving.

How the New Chassis, Aero, and Gearbox Deliver on Those Claims

Caldarelli’s feedback makes more sense when you understand what Lamborghini changed underneath the Revuelto’s skin, because the engineering departures from the Aventador are wholesale, not incremental.

The Revuelto is built around a carbon fiber “monofuselage.” According to Car and Driver, this tub increases the use of carbon fiber compared to the Aventador, with the front subframe constructed entirely from forged carbon fiber rather than the aluminum used previously. A stiffer, lighter structure changes everything about how a car responds at the limit: steering becomes more precise, suspension geometry stays more consistent under load, and the chassis telegraphs grip levels more clearly.

The powertrain architecture contributes to handling beyond raw horsepower. The 6.5-liter naturally aspirated V12 sits behind the cockpit. Two electric motors drive the front axle independently, providing genuine electric torque vectoring, while a third electric motor integrates into the new 8-speed dual-clutch transmission. This layout allows the Revuelto to send precise torque to individual front wheels, tightening the car’s line mid-corner or stabilizing it under power in ways a purely mechanical all-wheel-drive system cannot replicate with the same speed or granularity.

The electric motors respond in milliseconds, filling torque gaps during gear changes and providing instant thrust at low engine speeds where even a high-revving naturally aspirated V12 needs a moment to build power. A car you trust is a car you push harder, and Caldarelli’s willingness to call the Revuelto “easy to handle” suggests he found that trust quickly.

The Aventador’s Shadow and What the Revuelto Leaves Behind

Every Lamborghini flagship lives in conversation with its predecessor, and the Revuelto‘s relationship with the Aventador is particularly interesting because the older car’s flaws were, for many owners, part of its appeal.

The Aventador’s single-clutch gearbox was brutal. Its pushrod-actuated suspension was relatively simple by modern supercar standards. The car felt analog, unfiltered, and occasionally terrifying at the limit. That rawness defined the Aventador experience over its twelve-year production run.

The Revuelto abandons nearly all of that mechanical character in favor of sophistication. The dual-clutch gearbox, electric torque vectoring, active aerodynamics, and carbon monocoque are technologies designed to make the car faster and more capable, but they also change the fundamental texture of the driving experience. Caldarelli’s description of the car as “super smooth and easy to handle” would have been a criticism of an Aventador. Applied to the Revuelto, it signals that Lamborghini is competing on different terms.

For prospective buyers, this distinction matters. If you loved the Aventador because it felt like wrestling a bull, the Revuelto may feel like a different animal entirely. If you wanted the Aventador to be faster, more precise, and less likely to surprise you at an inopportune moment, the Revuelto appears to deliver exactly that. Lamborghini enthusiast forums reflect this split, with some owners describing the dual-clutch as a transformative improvement while others miss the mechanical drama. What Caldarelli’s endorsement settles is the narrower question: on a racetrack, with a professional at the wheel, the Revuelto’s sophistication translates into genuine capability, not sterility.

Competitive Context: Where the Revuelto Stands Against Ferrari and McLaren

Caldarelli’s track validation arrives as Lamborghini’s competitors make aggressive moves in the hybrid supercar space. Ferrari’s SF90 Stradale pioneered the V8-plus-three-electric-motors formula. McLaren’s Artura took a lighter, more minimalist approach to hybridization. The Revuelto’s answer is to keep the naturally aspirated V12, which none of its direct competitors offer, and use electrification to augment rather than replace the combustion engine’s character. That 6.5-liter V12 revs to 9,250 rpm, producing 814 hp on its own before the electric motors contribute. No turbocharger muffles the intake sound or introduces lag into the power delivery.

Caldarelli’s comments focus on power delivery and drivability, not on hybrid efficiency or electric range, which tells you where Lamborghini wants the conversation to land.

Car and Driver tested the Revuelto at its Lightning Lap event, recording a lap time of 2:41.3 at Virginia International Raceway with an as-tested price of $729,458. The MSRP is reported at around $608,358, though options can push the final number considerably higher.

The Revuelto’s unique proposition is clear: it is the only car in its competitive set that pairs a naturally aspirated twelve-cylinder engine with a hybrid system and electric front-axle torque vectoring. For Lamborghini’s core audience, whether that justifies the price premium over a Ferrari 296 GTB or McLaren 750S is a question that largely answers itself.

What Caldarelli’s Test Signals for Lamborghini’s Racing Future

The timing of this track session carries significance beyond the Revuelto itself. Caldarelli is part of the crew racing the Lamborghini SC63 in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the company’s most ambitious motorsport program in decades. A driver who splits his time between prototype endurance racing and road car evaluation creates a feedback loop between Lamborghini’s competition department and its road car engineers.

When Caldarelli comments on the Revuelto’s active aerodynamics or gearbox behavior, he is comparing those systems against the race cars he drives professionally. That context elevates his feedback from promotional endorsement to something closer to a technical debrief. Lamborghini’s decision to publicize his impressions suggests the company wants buyers to understand that the Revuelto’s engineering is validated against genuine racing standards.

The connection between road car and race car development at Sant’Agata Bolognese is becoming more explicit. The Huracán GT3 program demonstrated that Lamborghini could build a dominant customer racing platform. The SC63 extends that ambition to the top tier of endurance racing. The Revuelto sits at the intersection of these programs, borrowing carbon fiber expertise, aerodynamic philosophy, and powertrain integration knowledge from the racing side.

For buyers waiting on their Revuelto allocations, Caldarelli’s endorsement offers reassurance that the car’s hybrid complexity translates into genuine track capability. Several questions remain unanswered by this particular event: real-world electric-only range, long-term hybrid system reliability, and how the car behaves in stop-and-go traffic that most owners will encounter far more often than an open racetrack. Lamborghini chose to lead with the track narrative, and Caldarelli’s credibility makes that narrative persuasive. The everyday ownership story is one the company will need to tell separately.

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