Six Races, Two Circuits, One January: The 2022 Calendar Takes Shape
After a two-year absence forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lamborghini’s Super Trofeo Middle East championship is confirmed for January 2022. The compact calendar packs six races into 10 days across two rounds: Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi on January 20 through 22, followed by Dubai Autodrome on January 27 through 29. Every entry runs the Huracán Super Trofeo Evo, the dedicated, track-only race car that remains the backbone of Lamborghini’s global one-make racing program.
The series originally launched in the Middle East in 2017 and ran successful seasons through 2019 before the pandemic shut it down. Squadra Corse, Lamborghini’s motorsport division, organizes the championship around four driver classes: Pro, Pro-Am, Am, and Lamborghini Cup. Class champions earn free entry to the Super Trofeo World Finals, the season-ending showpiece for all regional championships worldwide.
What sets the Middle East format apart from its European, Asian, and North American counterparts is the race count. Each round features three 50-minute races rather than the standard two, translating to 50 percent more competitive laps per weekend. For drivers and teams investing in logistics, car preparation, and travel to the Gulf, that extra race represents a meaningful increase in seat time relative to cost. That density of competition, combined with a January window that avoids clashing with other regional calendars, positions the Middle East series as something more than a regional curiosity. It is a concentrated proving ground that feeds directly into Lamborghini’s broader motorsport ambitions.
The Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo race car, number 99, navigates a turn on the track under an overcast sky.
Why Squadra Corse Needs This Series Back
Restarting a regional racing championship after a two-year gap is not trivial. Teams disperse, drivers find other programs, and sponsors redirect budgets. That Squadra Corse chose to revive the Middle East series rather than fold its participants into the Asian or European calendars reveals how Lamborghini views the Gulf region: not as an afterthought, but as a distinct market with its own strategic logic.
The January timing is deliberate. Sitting outside the European and North American racing seasons, the calendar lets drivers use the series as a pre-season shakedown or a standalone competitive program without schedule conflicts. For gentleman drivers based in the Gulf, or for European professionals looking to stay sharp during the winter, that scheduling gap is a genuine advantage. Across its first three seasons, 69 drivers competed in the Middle East series, a respectable pool for a regional championship that runs only two weekends per year.
Behind the calendar sits a broader calculation. One-make series do double duty for Lamborghini: they sell race cars and parts to participants, and they put the brand’s name on circuits and broadcast feeds in markets where it competes fiercely with Ferrari and Porsche for ultra-high-net-worth buyers. In the Middle East, where supercar ownership rates per capita rank among the highest globally, keeping the Lamborghini name visible on the grid carries weight well beyond the motorsport budget line. The real return on investment, though, is measured in talent. Every driver who graduates from this grid strengthens the pipeline that connects Lamborghini’s customer racing program to its factory GT3 effort.
From the Gulf Grid to the GT3 Ladder
The most compelling argument for any one-make series is what it leads to, and Lamborghini’s pipeline from Super Trofeo to GT3 competition is more concrete than most rival programs. Frederik Schandorff provides the clearest example. The Danish driver won the 2019 Pro class title in the Middle East series, then took the Super Trofeo World Finals crown later that year. Lamborghini subsequently enrolled him in the GT3 Junior Drivers programme, which provides factory support, coaching, and racing opportunities in international GT3 endurance events.
That progression, from regional one-make champion to factory-supported GT3 driver, is exactly the kind of career ladder that attracts serious amateur and semi-professional racers. It also distinguishes Lamborghini’s approach from competitors. Ferrari Challenge and Porsche Carrera Cup both offer excellent racing, but Lamborghini’s explicit connection between Super Trofeo success and GT3 Junior Driver status creates a documented pathway rather than a vague promise. The Middle East series, with its concentrated format and World Finals entry reward for class champions, functions as one of the most efficient on-ramps to that ladder.
For aspiring racers, the practical question is obvious: what does a Super Trofeo Middle East season actually cost? Lamborghini does not publish a turnkey budget figure, and the answer depends heavily on whether a driver buys or leases the car, which team they join, and how much testing they do outside race weekends. The company’s official materials focus on the value proposition of three races per weekend and the World Finals entry reward for champions, but the full-season investment remains undisclosed. Forum discussions among Super Trofeo participants suggest costs are substantial, as expected for any international single-make series running purpose-built race cars, though specific figures vary widely depending on the team arrangement.
The Huracán Super Trofeo Evo: Still the Right Tool
The Huracán Super Trofeo Evo is not a road car with a roll cage bolted in. It is a purpose-built, non-street-legal race car that shares the Huracán’s 5.2-liter naturally aspirated V10 and hybrid carbon/aluminum frame construction but diverges in nearly every other respect. The engine produces 620 horsepower, sent exclusively to the rear wheels through a sequential gearbox. Dry weight sits at 1,270 kg (2,800 lb), achieved through extensive carbon fiber bodywork, a stripped interior, and racing-specific components including Öhlins dampers, Pirelli racing slicks, and a Motec M182 engine management system with nine-position traction control.
The rear-wheel-drive layout is a deliberate choice for driver development, and it ties directly to the series’ role as a GT3 feeder. Sending all 620 horsepower through the rear axle alone demands throttle discipline, car control, and an understanding of weight transfer that translates directly to higher-tier GT3 machinery. Drivers who learn racecraft in a rear-drive, naturally aspirated V10 car develop instincts that are harder to acquire in all-wheel-drive platforms where the electronics do more of the work.
Looking further ahead, the Huracán’s eventual replacement in the Super Trofeo role will almost certainly involve the Temerario platform. Lamborghini replaced the road-going Huracán with the plug-in hybrid Temerario, and Autoblog reports that the Temerario GT3 is Lamborghini’s first competition car to be fully designed, developed, and built in-house. When a Super Trofeo version of the Temerario eventually arrives, it will mark the end of naturally aspirated power in Lamborghini’s customer racing ladder. The 2022 Middle East season therefore represents one of the final chapters for the V10 on the competitive grid, giving the series an added dimension for enthusiasts who value that mechanical character.
The Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo race car, number 33, rests inside a brightly illuminated racetrack tunnel.
Yas Marina and Dubai Autodrome: Two Tracks, Two Characters
The circuit pairing is well chosen. Yas Marina, host of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, is a facility most racing fans already know from Formula 1 broadcasts. Its combination of high-speed straights, tight hotel-section corners, and that distinctive tunnel passage between sectors offers a varied challenge that rewards both raw power and mechanical grip. For Super Trofeo drivers, running the same tarmac as F1 carries a certain cachet that helps with sponsor conversations and personal motivation alike.
Dubai Autodrome provides a different test. The 5.39-kilometer circuit features a flowing layout with elevation changes that reward smooth inputs and consistent car placement. The contrast between Yas Marina’s stop-start sections and Dubai’s more rhythmic corners offers a useful education in adapting driving style to circuit character, all within a single championship. That variety reinforces the series’ development mission: drivers who can extract pace from both layouts are better prepared for the diverse circuits they will encounter higher up the GT3 ladder.
The weekend format itself is structured to maximize learning. Each round begins with two 60-minute free practice sessions, a generous allocation that gives newer drivers time to find their pace before the pressure of qualifying. Two 20-minute qualifying sessions follow, with a grid-setting system that rewards consistency: Race 1 uses Q1 times, Race 2 uses Q2 results, and the final race combines both sessions. That structure penalizes one-lap heroics and rewards repeatable speed, which aligns with the series’ philosophy of building complete racers rather than qualifying specialists.
Lamborghini’s global one-make series was inaugurated in 2009, and 13 years later, the Middle East leg continues to serve as both a proving ground for talent and a strategic anchor for the brand in one of its most important commercial regions. The Huracán Super Trofeo Evo remains a formidable and rewarding race car, the circuits are world-class, and the pathway from a January weekend in Abu Dhabi to the World Finals podium is real. For Squadra Corse, reviving this series is not nostalgia. It is an investment in the next generation of Lamborghini racing drivers.
Gallery
