A Weekend of Two Faces at the Nürburgring
When every car on the grid is mechanically identical, the only variable left is the person behind the wheel. The Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe proved that point twice over at the Nürburgring, where the second half of the 2024 season opened with a weekend that stripped two very different drivers down to pure talent and nerve.
Saturday’s opener ran in heavy rain, the kind of soaking conditions that turn identical Huracán Super Trofeo EVO machinery into a referendum on car control. Sunday delivered blue skies and dry asphalt. BDR Competition by Grupo Prom’s Amaury Bonduel won the wet race while nursing an alternator problem nobody in the grandstands could see. Art-Line’s Egor Orudzhev won the dry one after vaulting from eleventh to third on the opening lap alone. Neither victory owed anything to an engineering advantage, because in this series no such advantage exists. That is precisely the point Lamborghini’s one-make format is built to make, and the Nürburgring weekend made it emphatically.
Race 1: Bonduel Masters the Rain
Heavy rain forced the first race to start behind the safety car, with pole-sitter Bonduel maintaining his advantage into the opening corner. Behind him, the field scrambled. The #9 Target Racing car of Oliver Söderström quickly moved into second with an aggressive pass around the outside of Iron Lynx‘s Jesse Salmenautio and began closing on the leader.
The mandatory pit stops reshuffled the order. Target Racing’s Largim Ali emerged ahead of Bonduel after spending less time in the pit lane, but the advantage was short-lived. Bonduel reclaimed the position at Turn 3 and managed the gap through the closing laps, crossing the line just under five seconds clear. Salmenautio and Giorgio Amati completed the overall podium for Iron Lynx.
“I’m very happy with the victory today, it was a great battle with Largim and I had to fight really hard, also with the tyres and the conditions which were not at all easy. I also had a problem with the alternator which made it difficult but, in the end, I am happy to win again and take the lead of the championship back once more.”
That alternator detail is worth noting. In a one-make series, the car is supposed to be the constant. When it misbehaves, the driver absorbs the deficit entirely. Bonduel’s fourth win of the season came with a mechanical handicap most viewers would never have noticed, and it put him back in control of the Pro title race heading into the final stretch of the calendar.
Race 2: Orudzhev’s Breakthrough from Eleventh on the Grid
Sunday’s conditions could not have been more different. Clear skies, dry tarmac, and a mixed-up grid produced by a drying track during the second qualifying session set up a very different kind of race. Orudzhev started eleventh. By the first turn, he was third.
Lamborghini says Orudzhev gained eight places on that opening sequence alone, threading through a bunched pack to emerge ahead of Bonduel and immediately on the tail of the Pro-Am leader. He took second on the following lap and settled into a rhythm the rest of the field could not disrupt. After the pit window closed, Orudzhev held station and extended his margin, eventually taking the checkered flag for his maiden Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe victory. Bonduel finished second, a result that still strengthened his Pro title position.
“It feels great to finally win a race… after starting P11, I would never have thought that I would be on the podium because it is really hard to get in front, especially with the tyre degradation that we have had this weekend. But to be in P3 at turn one and then pull off a great move to take P2, it was mega.”
Orudzhev’s own words reveal why the opening-lap gain mattered so much. Tire degradation in the Super Trofeo series punishes late-race overtaking, which means the window for making up ground is narrow and closes fast. Without that aggressive first-corner move, the maiden win likely stays out of reach. It was a performance that only identical machinery could frame so clearly: no power advantage, no aero trick, just a driver who saw a gap and committed.
Class Winners Across the Weekend
The Pro class grabbed the headlines, but the supporting categories reinforced the same lesson about driver quality rising to the surface when the cars are equal.
In Pro-Am, Mičánek Motorsport’s Štefan Rosina and Bronislav Formánek took the Race 1 win after a late-race charge, while Target Racing’s Frederik Schandorff and Alex Au bounced back with a controlled Race 2 victory. Formánek and Rosina now carry a comfortable championship lead in the class heading toward Barcelona. Lola Lovinfosse, a member of Lamborghini’s Young Driver Programme, recorded a breakthrough maiden Pro-Am podium at the Nürburgring in only her first Super Trofeo season.
The Am class belonged to VS Racing’s Piergiacomo Randazzo and Stéphane Tribaudini, who swept both races. Their Race 2 performance was particularly striking: Tribaudini led the entire field outright after a bold move into Turn 1, handing over a commanding margin to Randazzo for the second stint. The pair hold a 28.5-point advantage in the Am standings.
In the Lamborghini Cup, Art-Line’s Shota Abkhazava was similarly dominant, winning both races from pole. His double brought him within 2.5 points of the class championship lead, setting up a tense final act for the season.
Why the One-Make Format Tells the Real Story
For readers who follow GT3 or endurance racing, the Super Trofeo format can look like a minor league. It is anything but. The Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe is built around the Huracán Super Trofeo EVO, and that identical-machinery structure strips away the engineering arms race that defines multi-manufacturer series. When every car on the grid runs the same specification, the weekend becomes a pure test of driver ability, team preparation, and pit-stop execution. Bonduel winning through rain and a failing alternator, Orudzhev carving from eleventh to first, Tribaudini leading the entire field outright from the Am class: none of those stories exist if the cars are not equal.
This is also the environment Lamborghini uses to identify and develop talent. The series functions as a proving ground where drivers build the credentials that can lead to customer GT3 seats and, potentially, factory-supported programs. Ferrari and Porsche run analogous one-make feeder series, but Lamborghini’s version remains the only one built entirely around a naturally aspirated V10 race car. That distinction will change as the brand transitions its motorsport portfolio, but for now, the Huracán Super Trofeo EVO offers something competitors do not replicate.
For anyone watching the broader Lamborghini motorsport picture, Autoblog reports that the upcoming Temerario GT3 is Lamborghini’s first competition car to be fully designed, developed, and built in-house. When that car arrives, the Super Trofeo pipeline will matter even more: teams and drivers graduating from a Lamborghini-only series into a Lamborghini-engineered GT3 car creates a vertically integrated motorsport ladder the brand could not previously claim.
Barcelona and Jerez Close Out the Season
The Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe now enters an extended break before the penultimate round at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on October 7 and 8. The 2024 season will then conclude in November at Jerez de la Frontera, which also hosts the traditional Lamborghini World Finals.
Bonduel holds the upper hand in the Pro class, but the Nürburgring weekend demonstrated that the field is close enough for a single bad qualifying session or a rain-soaked first lap to reshuffle the order. Orudzhev’s maiden win proves that much. Across every class, the tightest championship battles belong to drivers who found something extra when the machinery offered nothing to hide behind. The final two rounds should deliver exactly the kind of tension the format is designed to produce.
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