Imperiale Racing Closes the Championship Gap at Nürburgring
Kikko Galbiati and Vito Postiglione picked up their third Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe victory of the 2019 season in the opening race at Nürburgring, and the result did exactly what Imperiale Racing needed: it compressed the championship fight into a genuine two-horse race. According to Imperiale Racing’s own published standings, the gap between points leaders Danny Kroes and Sergei Afanasiev (121 points) and the Galbiati/Postiglione pairing (116 points) now sits at just five points heading into the final rounds.
That is a dramatic swing from earlier in the season, when the Bonaldi Motorsport duo looked comfortable at the top. Galbiati and Postiglione, driving the #44 Imperiale Racing Huracán Super Trofeo Evo, qualified only third on Saturday morning. Kroes and Afanasiev topped the session in the #3 Bonaldi car, with teammates Stuart Middleton and Jack Bartholomew slotting into second. On pure qualifying pace, the championship leaders looked set to extend their advantage. The race told a very different story.
A Calculated Opening Stint: Galbiati’s Launch Sets the Tone
Galbiati took the start in the #44 car and immediately jumped Bartholomew off the line to move into second behind Kroes. That single position gained at the start turned out to be the foundation of the entire race result. In a one-make series where every car runs the same Huracán Super Trofeo Evo hardware, track position is currency, and Galbiati banked it early.
Kroes controlled the opening laps from the front, but Galbiati kept the pressure close enough that the mandatory pit stop window became the real battleground. The driver change, the pit stop execution, the timing of when you come in: all of it matters in a 50-minute race where cars are mechanically identical. Imperiale Racing nailed the exchange, and when Postiglione rolled out of pit lane, he emerged marginally ahead of Afanasiev. Close enough that a botched pit stop or a slow wheel gun would have handed the lead right back.
Postiglione Takes Control and the Gap Balloons
Once Postiglione had clean air, the veteran drove away. Lamborghini says the final victory margin was 14.525 seconds over Afanasiev, which in a one-make series is a statement result. When every car produces the same power from the same naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10, a gap that large comes down to driver skill, tire management, and the kind of confidence that only experience provides.
The Super Trofeo format strips away the engineering arms race that defines open-class GT racing and forces the competition onto the drivers themselves. A 14-second margin in identical machinery is the equivalent of shouting across the paddock. Postiglione’s second stint was not just a win; it was the kind of performance that shifts psychological momentum in a championship fight this tight.
Middleton’s 360-Degree Spin and the Podium Scramble
The fight for third provided the race’s most entertaining sequence. Stuart Middleton, who took over from Bartholomew after the pit stops, found himself defending against Target Racing’s Alberto Di Folco and Leipert Motorsport’s Anthony Lambert. Middleton lacked the pace of the cars behind him but kept them bottled up through clean, stubborn defensive driving.
Then came the Schumacher Chicane with less than five minutes on the clock. Middleton spun the car a full 360 degrees. In most racing series, a spin that late means you are done. Middleton dropped only two places, fought back past Lambert on the final lap, and finished a fraction behind Di Folco, who secured the last podium step for himself and teammate Davide Venditti. The whole sequence, from the spin to the recovery to the last-lap pass, took maybe three minutes of real time. It was the sort of incident that makes one-make racing worth watching even when the overall winner is already decided.
Based on Imperiale Racing’s reported standings, Bartholomew and Middleton hold 100 points, well within striking distance of the leaders but needing a perfect run to close the gap.
A pack of Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo Evo race cars navigate a turn during a high-speed competition on a sunny day.
Class Results: Penalties, Comebacks, and a Lamborghini Cup Win
Harald Schlegelmilch of ArtLine Team Georgia turned in the most dramatic drive outside the Pro class. The Latvian started from the back of the grid, picked up a drive-through penalty for jumping the start, stayed in the car for the entire race without a driver swap, and still finished as the top Pro-Am entry. He beat the GT3 Poland car of Grzegorz Moczulski and Andrzej Lewandowski despite giving away time on two separate occasions before the race even settled.
In the Am class, Robert Zwinger claimed victory in his GT3 Poland entry after overhauling the Leipert Motorsport pairing of Mikko Eskelinen and Jake Rattenbury, who led from pole but could not hold off Zwinger’s pace after the stops. Lamborghini Cup honors went to Joseph Collado of AGS Events, who finished comfortably ahead of reigning champion Gerhard van Der Horst.
The class structure in Super Trofeo, spanning Pro, Pro-Am, Am, and Lamborghini Cup, exists specifically to keep racing competitive across different driver experience levels. A gentleman driver in the Am class gets a genuine championship fight against peers, not just a participation trophy for showing up behind the professionals. That layered competition is one of the things Lamborghini’s series does well, and it kept the Nürburgring weekend compelling well beyond the Pro class headline.
What This Championship Battle Means Going Forward
Five points separating the top two entries heading into the final rounds is exactly the scenario Lamborghini Squadra Corse wants for its flagship European customer racing series. A dominant champion is good for the winner’s highlight reel. A tight championship fight is good for the series, because it keeps teams investing, keeps sponsors engaged, and keeps the paddock buzzing.
The Super Trofeo series, established in 2009, remains the primary entry point for customer teams looking to race Lamborghini hardware in a structured, factory-supported environment. Squadra Corse provides technical assistance, tire services through partner Hankook, and spare parts trackside during race weekends. For drivers with ambitions beyond one-make racing, the series functions as a proving ground. Success here can open doors to GT3 competition, where Lamborghini’s involvement is expanding. The Temerario GT3, which Autoblog reported as Lamborghini’s first competition car fully designed, developed, and built in-house, represents the next chapter of that pipeline.
The second race of the Nürburgring weekend was scheduled for Sunday morning. With the points gap this narrow, Imperiale Racing had every reason to push for a double. Based on reporting from Imperiale Racing’s own account, that is exactly what happened: Galbiati and Postiglione swept both races at the Nürburgring round, picking up their fourth win of the season on Sunday. The championship math just got very uncomfortable for Bonaldi Motorsport.
