The 2020 Paul Ricard Finale: Race Highlights and Championship Drama
The 2020 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe season came down to a single race at Paul Ricard, and it delivered everything a title decider should: steward investigations, mechanical gremlins, contact for the lead, and a championship outcome that hinged on raw driving skill rather than clean-sheet strategy. That is exactly what a one-make series built around identical Huracán Super Trofeo EVOs is supposed to produce, and the Paul Ricard finale proved the format works.
Dean Stoneman (Bonaldi Motorsport) clinched the championship with a second-place finish, while Leipert Motorsport’s Sebastian Balthasar and Noah Watt scored their maiden Super Trofeo Europe win in the same chaotic 50-minute sprint. Title rival Kevin Gilardoni’s challenge ended with a spin at Turn 2, steward interventions reshaped the early running order, and a malfunctioning pit-lane speed limiter forced Stoneman to manage his stop manually. Stoneman entered the finale trailing Gilardoni by half a point, meaning anything less than a strong finish would hand the title to the Oregon Team driver. What followed was a race where almost nothing went according to plan for anyone on the grid.
Stoneman started from pole but lost ground immediately. Alberto di Folco (Target Racing) and Gilardoni both jumped ahead at Turns 1 and 2, pushing Stoneman back to third. Patrick Liddy’s GSM Racing car then got past him at Turn 4, dropping the championship contender to fourth before the first lap was complete. Both di Folco and Gilardoni drew scrutiny for gaining their positions off-track at the opening corners. Di Folco was ordered to hand his place back to Stoneman. Gilardoni’s situation resolved itself more abruptly: exiting the sweeping right-hander at Turn 2, his Oregon Team car ran wide onto the kerbs, bounced over a secondary set, and spun across the path of the cars behind. The spin dropped Gilardoni to eleventh and ended his title challenge. His teammate Dorian Boccolacci recovered the car to eighth by the flag, but the damage to the championship fight was done.
With Gilardoni out of contention, Stoneman needed only to finish. The pressure shifted from championship survival to race management. Di Folco, who had shared a race win with Kevin Rossel at the Nurburgring earlier in the season, stayed within half a second of Stoneman before the pit window opened, keeping the race itself alive even as the title picture clarified.
A Broken Speed Limiter and a Fight for the Lead
Stoneman pitted one lap before di Folco and immediately encountered the kind of mechanical unpredictability that separates real racing from simulation: his pit-lane speed limiter malfunctioned. With no functioning limiter and no working timer on the dashboard, Stoneman was forced to manage his pit-lane entry speed manually, relying on radio calls from the Bonaldi Motorsport crew for timing. A pit-lane speeding penalty in that moment could have unraveled his entire championship. He avoided one. Cedric Leimer, competing in the Am class, was not so fortunate and received a drive-through penalty for the same infraction.
After the stops shook out, Rossel (who had taken over from di Folco) held the lead, with Balthasar’s Leipert Motorsport car in second and Stoneman close behind. The top three ran nose-to-tail entering the closing stages. Stoneman, now needing only a finish to secure the title, sat back in third. Balthasar had no such restraint.
With ten minutes remaining, the German driver lunged for the lead at Turn 5 but ran deep and had to slot back behind Rossel. On the following lap, an identical dive resulted in contact between the pair, and Balthasar emerged in front. Stewards investigated the incident but took no further action, allowing Balthasar to pull clear. He crossed the line over five seconds ahead of Stoneman, who also passed Rossel for second. Cecotto claimed the final podium spot, with Rossel finishing fourth after further late-race contact from Milos Pavlovic, who spun out of Turn 2 after briefly holding third.
The Huracán Super Trofeo EVO: A Purpose-Built Racer’s Legacy
Every car on the Paul Ricard grid was a Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo EVO, the track-only variant built specifically for one-make competition. Powered by an enhanced 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 and constructed with extensive carbon fiber and aluminum to cut weight significantly below the road car, the Super Trofeo EVO exists solely to race. It debuted in Huracán form in 2014, succeeding the Gallardo-based car that launched the series.
The class battles told their own stories of consistency and, in one case, outright dominance within that identical machinery. Leipert Motorsport’s Yury Wagner clinched the Am class title after he and teammate Fidel Leib claimed their sixth consecutive Am class victory. The pair started from pole but fell behind Cedric Leimer’s Autovitesse entry early on; Leimer’s drive-through penalty for pit-lane speeding removed him from contention for the win, though he recovered to finish second in class. In Pro-Am, VS Racing’s Karol Basz and Andrzej Lewandowski capped a season of near-total control by taking their ninth class win in ten races, a strike rate rare in any racing series that secured the Pro-Am title with a margin leaving little room for debate. The Lamborghini Cup class went to Donovan and Luciano Privitelio (FFF Racing), while Hans Fabri (Imperiale Racing) was crowned the overall Lamborghini Cup champion for the season.
These results reinforce the central promise of the Super Trofeo format: when every team gets the same tools, driver skill and team execution become the only differentiators. Stoneman overcame a half-point deficit entering the finale. Gilardoni lost everything in one corner. Balthasar and Watt went from mid-pack to race winners in their final outing.
Beyond the Track: The Super Trofeo Series as a Proving Ground for Lamborghini Motorsport
The Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, established in 2009, remains the longest-running of the brand’s continental championships. The 2020 season visited five circuits: Misano Adriatico, Nurburgring, Barcelona, Spa-Francorchamps, and Paul Ricard. That calendar, compressed by the realities of 2020, still delivered a championship that went down to the final race.
The series occupies a specific role in the broader motorsport ecosystem. It provides a structured competitive environment for gentleman drivers and aspiring professionals alike, with class divisions (Pro, Pro-Am, Am, and Lamborghini Cup) that allow drivers at different experience levels to compete meaningfully. More than a standalone championship, the series functions as a visible proving ground for Lamborghini’s racing operations under Squadra Corse. The operational lessons learned running hundreds of identical Huracán Super Trofeo EVOs across multiple continental series feed directly into how Lamborghini approaches its broader competition programs.
Connecting the Dots: Super Trofeo’s Role in Lamborghini’s GT3 Ambitions
With the Temerario GT3, widely reported as Lamborghini’s first competition car fully designed, developed, and built in-house, now entering the picture, the pipeline from customer racing to factory programs looks more direct than it did during the Huracán era. The Super Trofeo series has spent over a decade refining Squadra Corse’s ability to prepare, support, and develop race cars in a competitive environment. That institutional knowledge does not vanish when the platform changes; it carries forward.
The 2020 finale at Paul Ricard featured steward interventions, mechanical failures under pressure, and lead changes decided by contact, all in identical machinery. For anyone wondering what separates a one-make series from a parade, this race answered that question emphatically. And for Lamborghini, the answer matters beyond trophies: every season of Super Trofeo competition sharpens the operational edge that Squadra Corse brings to its next chapter in GT racing.
What’s Next for Super Trofeo: A Look at Future Seasons and Series Evolution
For prospective participants, the practical takeaway from 2020 is that the series rewards consistency across a full season but can pivot on a single incident in a single race. Stoneman’s title, Balthasar and Watt’s breakthrough win, and the class dominance of Wagner and Basz all reinforced the same point: the Super Trofeo series produces real racing, not exhibition laps. The format that delivered this kind of drama at Paul Ricard is the same format that will continue to develop drivers, teams, and Lamborghini’s own racing ambitions in the seasons ahead.
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