Race Cancelled, GT3 Entries Withdrawn After Paul Ricard Fatality
Lamborghini confirmed the cancellation of the second Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo race at the Paul Ricard circuit following a fatal multi-car accident that claimed the life of Andrea Mamé. The decision carried the unanimous support of Mamé’s fellow competitors. Every driver in the paddock agreed the weekend’s racing was over.
The consequences reached beyond the one-make series. Lamborghini also withdrew two GT3 entries, cars #24 and #125 of Blancpain Racing, from the afternoon’s Blancpain Endurance Series race. Drivers Marc A. Hayek, Peter Kox, Albert von Thurn und Taxis, Stefan Rosina, and Jos Menten would not take the grid. Pulling factory-supported GT3 cars from a marquee endurance event, at the cost of results, data, and championship visibility, signals the gravity of what happened and the kind of racing organization Lamborghini intends to be.
Four other drivers received medical attention after the incident. Vaclav Petch (car #77), Tomas Kral (car #88), and Dario Cerati (car #33) were released from the medical center following precautionary checks. Andrea Solimè (car #10) was airlifted to Hopital Sainte Musse in Toulon, where Lamborghini confirmed he was conscious and talking, with no fractures or visible injuries. Doctors planned to monitor his condition throughout the day, with a further update expected in due course.
Lamborghini’s Response: Responsibility Before Competition
Automobili Lamborghini stated its immediate priority was to support Andrea Mamé’s family. The company and SRO Motorsports Group confirmed they would work with circuit authorities to investigate the accident, though the cause was not immediately clear.
Cancelling a race is straightforward. Withdrawing GT3 cars from a separate, commercially significant endurance event is a different calculation entirely, one that costs the brand points and presence in a championship it takes seriously. Lamborghini chose solidarity over competition. Whether or not that choice was difficult behind closed doors, the public message was unambiguous: the racing family came first.
Squadra Corse, the division responsible for all of Lamborghini’s racing programs, manages not just the engineering side but the human infrastructure around it. The Super Trofeo series, by design, places amateur and semi-professional drivers in genuinely fast machinery. That creates a specific duty of care that goes beyond what a factory team owes its salaried professionals, and the Paul Ricard response revealed how Lamborghini understands that obligation when it is tested at its worst.
Remembering Andrea Mamé
Mamé was 41 years old and had competed in the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo for two seasons. Born in Milan, he was the chairman and CEO of the Mame Group, which he founded in 2009. Outside of racing, he pursued hunting and deep-sea diving. Lamborghini described him as deeply competitive and widely liked within the paddock.
His profile fits a pattern familiar to anyone who follows customer racing closely. The Super Trofeo grid draws heavily from successful professionals and business owners who race because they love it, not because it pays. These are people who could spend their weekends elsewhere. Instead, they strap into a roll cage, accept the risks, and chase apexes alongside strangers who become friends through shared intensity. Mamé embodied that ethos for two full seasons, long enough to become a fixture rather than a newcomer, and the unanimous decision by his fellow competitors to end the weekend’s racing speaks to the bonds that form on grids like these.
The Particular Risks of Customer Motorsport
The Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo, which held its inaugural season in 2009 using Gallardo-based race cars, operates as a one-make series organized by Lamborghini Squadra Corse in partnership with Swiss watchmaker Blancpain. Identical machinery means driver skill determines results, but it also means large grids of similarly paced cars running in close quarters, often piloted by drivers whose experience levels vary enormously.
The cars themselves are serious. The Huracán LP620-2 Super Trofeo produces 620 horsepower from its naturally aspirated 5.2-liter V10 and weighs just 1,270 kg dry. Its rear-wheel-drive configuration, deliberately chosen over the road car’s all-wheel-drive system, rewards skill and punishes mistakes. An FIA-compliant integrated roll cage, Brembo/PFC brakes, and a full racing data system all reflect professional-grade safety engineering. Yet no amount of engineering eliminates risk when closing speeds between cars are high and the experience gap between competitors is wide.
This tension sits at the heart of every customer racing series in the supercar world. Ferrari runs its Challenge series on a similar model. Porsche fields the Carrera Cup. Each manufacturer must balance the commercial appeal of selling race-ready cars to wealthy enthusiasts against the sobering reality that not every driver on the grid carries decades of racing instinct. How Lamborghini handled the Paul Ricard tragedy, from the immediate race cancellation through the GT3 withdrawal, will inevitably become a reference point for how the brand manages that balance going forward.
What This Means for Lamborghini’s Racing Future
Lamborghini did not announce any changes to the remaining Super Trofeo calendar or to its broader motorsport programs following the Paul Ricard incident. The company’s stated focus was entirely on supporting Mamé’s family and monitoring Solimè’s recovery.
The Super Trofeo series, which expanded from its European origins to include continental championships in Asia and North America, carries real stakes beyond trophies. It functions as a pipeline: drivers gain rear-wheel-drive experience that prepares them for GT3 and GT racing at higher levels. Disrupting that pipeline, even temporarily, ripples through the entire Squadra Corse ecosystem.
Lamborghini’s willingness to absorb those consequences at Paul Ricard demonstrated that the brand treats its racing community as something more than a marketing exercise. Whether the tragedy prompts specific safety revisions to the series format, grid procedures, or car specifications remains unknown. What the weekend made clear is that when the worst happens, Lamborghini’s instinct was to stop, grieve, and take care of its people before thinking about championship standings.
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