A Generational Handoff Begins at Imola
The next-generation Temerario Super Trofeo will make its first official outing this weekend at the Autodromo di Imola, appearing alongside the 30-plus Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 race cars still competing in Lamborghini’s one-make championship. The car won’t race. It won’t set a qualifying time. But its physical presence on the same weekend that the current V10 grid fights for championship points amounts to Lamborghini Squadra Corse, the brand’s motorsport division, publicly staging the transition from one era to another.
The Temerario Super Trofeo is slated for its competitive debut next year, replacing the Huracán EVO2 that currently anchors the series. One source reports the new car runs a 4.0-liter twin-turbo V8 derived from the road-going Temerario, ditching the hybrid components of the street version for a pure rear-wheel-drive racing configuration. Power figures remain contested across outlets, with numbers ranging from 620 to roughly 670 horsepower depending on the source. Lamborghini itself has not confirmed final specifications.
For teams and drivers who’ve spent years calibrating their setups around the Huracán’s naturally aspirated power delivery, this shift is seismic. Turbocharging introduces lag characteristics, different heat management demands, and a fundamentally altered powerband. The throttle response that made the V10 so predictable in wheel-to-wheel combat gives way to a mid-range surge that rewards a different driving technique entirely. The first official outing at Imola lets Squadra Corse gauge paddock reaction and, presumably, begin the long process of acclimatizing the customer racing community to a car that sounds, feels, and behaves nothing like its predecessor.
Multiple reports indicate the Temerario GT3, a separate competition variant aimed at international endurance racing, was previously unveiled at the 2025 Goodwood Festival of Speed. That car represents Lamborghini’s first competition machine to be fully designed, developed, and built in-house, rather than outsourced to a partner constructor. The Super Trofeo version sits below the GT3 in the competitive hierarchy but shares its philosophical DNA: a purpose-built race car rooted in the Temerario platform, designed to feed drivers upward through Lamborghini’s motorsport ladder.
Lamborghini Arena Returns: 6,000 Fans and a Parade of 350 Bulls
Running concurrently with the race weekend, the second edition of Lamborghini Arena turns Imola from a racing venue into a full-scale brand gathering. The inaugural event in 2024 drew over 6,000 participants, displayed approximately 380 cars, and staged a parade of more than 350 Lamborghinis around the Imola circuit. For a brand that delivered just over 10,000 cars globally in recent years, getting 350 of them onto one racetrack simultaneously is a concentration of ownership rarely seen outside of Monterey Car Week.
Lamborghini describes the event as designed for super sports car owners who can participate with their own vehicles, alongside enthusiasts attending as spectators. The practical effect is that the paddock becomes a showroom in reverse: instead of Lamborghini presenting cars to potential buyers, owners present their cars to each other. Spec choices, color combinations, and personalization details get examined in person rather than through Instagram filters. Anyone who follows the online configurator debates on enthusiast forums knows that seeing Verde Turbine next to Grigio Telesto in daylight settles arguments that screenshots never can.
The co-scheduling with the Super Trofeo race weekend is deliberate. Owners watching customer racing from the grandstands are, effectively, watching the next rung on the ownership ladder — except that last word is exactly the problem. Squadra Corse runs the races; SRO Motorsports Group provides the organizational framework for the championship’s sporting regulations. The combination of spectating, socializing, and driving their own cars on the circuit creates a weekend that functions as both entertainment and, for those considering a racing program, a soft introduction to what competition entry looks like.
Championship Battles: Gilardoni and Iaquinta Lead by a Single Point
The racing itself remains fiercely competitive. More than 30 Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2 cars will tackle two 50-minute races on Sunday, each featuring a mandatory pit stop that must be taken between the 20th and 30th minute. Solo driver entries face a minimum pit-stop time of 63 seconds, while two-driver cars must remain stationary for 60 seconds, a rule designed to equalize the advantage of having a fresh driver.
In the Pro class, DL Racing’s Kevin Gilardoni and Simone Iaquinta hold a one-point lead over Rexal Villorba Corse’s Benedetto Strignano and Nicholas Pujatti after the season opener at Paul Ricard. Both crews split victories in France, with Iaquinta’s race-two pole position providing the slimmest of margins heading into Imola. The all-Finnish pairing of Matias Salonen and Henri Tuomaala at Leipert Motorsport sits third, ten points back but well within striking distance across a season that spans six rounds before the traditional Lamborghini World Finals.
New to the grid this weekend: experienced racer Euan Hankey joins Fin Green in an all-British lineup at VSR, adding depth to an already crowded Pro field. Patrik Fraboni and Silas Lovén Rytter at Oregon Team, along with Swedish drivers Axel Bengtsson and Månz Thalin at Leipert Motorsport, round out a class where the top six are separated by fewer points than a single race victory is worth.
The Pro-Am class looks more settled on paper but no less absorbing on track. Bronislav Formánek and Anthony Pretorius of Mičánek Motorsport powered by Buggyra lead by seven points after sweeping both wins at Paul Ricard, a dominant start that puts pressure on Oregon Team’s Pietro Perolini and Josef Knopp in second. Jonathan Cecotto and Sergei Astafjev at Invictus Corse sit sixth, looking to recover from a difficult opener.
The Am and Lamborghini Cup Classes: Where the Grid Gets Interesting
The Am category sees several notable returns at Imola. Karim Ojjeh, the 2025 Lamborghini Cup champion, will make his first 2026 start with Rexal Villorba Corse, stepping up a class. Father-and-son pairing Andrzej and Adrian Lewandowski reunite at GT3 Poland, while Laurent Jenny and Cedric Leimer return aboard the Autovitesse entry. Series veteran Raffaele Giannoni bolsters the grid with Automobile Tricolore.
Grzegorz Moczulski of GT3 Poland leads the Am standings after a win and a second place at Paul Ricard, with Jakub Knoll and Renaud Kuppens four points behind. CMR’s Stéphane Lemeret and Rodrigue Gillion are third after winning race two in France.
In the Lamborghini Cup, the entry-level class designed for gentleman drivers, Claude-Yves Gosselin of Rexal Villorba Corse leads the standings following a pair of second-place finishes. Peder Demant Møller and Nina Østergaard of DC Motorsport sit just three points back after winning on their Super Trofeo debut. The four classes — Pro, Pro-Am, Am, and Lamborghini Cup — race simultaneously on the same track but compete for separate titles, which means a 30-car grid contains at least four distinct championship battles unfolding in every corner.
The practical buyer takeaway for anyone considering a Super Trofeo entry: this is the final full season of the Huracán EVO2 in the series. Used Super Trofeo cars already appear on the secondary market, with prices ranging significantly depending on model year and mileage. For aspiring competitors, the transition year creates an unusual window where current-generation cars may become available at more accessible prices as teams prepare for the Temerario platform.
What the V10’s Final Season Means for Lamborghini’s Racing Ladder
Lamborghini says the Super Trofeo one-make GT series began in 2009, making this the 17th season of a championship that functions as the first competitive rung for drivers aiming at GT3 and eventually GT World Challenge or endurance racing. The format is deliberately structured to develop racecraft under controlled conditions: identical cars eliminate engineering advantages, the mandatory pit-stop window forces strategic thinking, and the four-class structure means Pro drivers share the track with amateurs, learning traffic management that proves invaluable in mixed-class endurance events.
The Huracán Super Trofeo EVO2, which Lamborghini says produces 620 horsepower from its 5.2-liter V10 naturally aspirated engine, uses a six-speed sequential gearbox by X-trac, the same British transmission supplier whose units appear in Formula 1 and Le Mans Prototype cars. The car is rear-wheel drive, which strips away the all-wheel-drive safety net of the road-going Huracán and forces drivers to manage traction with their right foot alone. In a corner like Imola’s Rivazza, where the track drops away on exit and the rear tires unload, that absence of front-axle assistance makes the difference between a clean lap and a trip through the gravel.
The 2026 calendar sends the series to six of Europe’s most technically demanding circuits: Paul Ricard (already completed), Imola (this weekend), then Spa-Francorchamps in June, the Nürburgring in August, Barcelona in October, and Monza for the final round and World Finals in late October. Each venue tests a different aspect of car and driver: Spa’s elevation changes and high-speed compressions, the Nürburgring’s relentless braking zones, Barcelona’s abrasive surface that destroys rear tires, and Monza’s slipstream battles on the long straights where the V10’s top-end power matters most.
Both Imola races will be livestreamed on the official Lamborghini Squadra Corse YouTube channel. Saturday’s qualifying begins at 17:50, with Race 1 on Sunday at 09:25 and Race 2 at 15:30.
The Competitive Landscape: Why the Transition Matters Beyond Sant’Agata
Lamborghini’s one-make series does not operate in a vacuum. Ferrari runs the Ferrari Challenge, Porsche fields the Carrera Cup, and both serve similar purposes: giving paying customers a controlled environment to race identical machinery. The difference is philosophical. The Super Trofeo’s V10 naturally aspirated engine, rear-wheel-drive layout, and X-trac sequential gearbox produce a car that punishes mistakes more aggressively than the turbocharged, paddle-shifted alternatives in rival series. That rawness is the selling point. It is also the thing most at risk when the series moves to the twin-turbo Temerario platform.
The shift from atmospheric to forced-induction power in a customer racing series is not trivial. Turbo engines deliver power differently: the surge arrives in the midrange rather than building linearly to a screaming top end, and the driver must learn to anticipate boost rather than simply modulate throttle position. For the gentleman drivers in the Am and Lamborghini Cup classes, this represents a steeper learning curve. For the Pro drivers, it means recalibrating braking points and corner-exit techniques developed over years with the V10’s predictable delivery.
Autoblog noted that the Temerario GT3 is Lamborghini’s first competition car to be fully designed, developed, and built in-house, a departure from the Huracán GT3’s development partnership with Dallara. If the Super Trofeo variant follows the same in-house philosophy, Squadra Corse gains complete control over the car’s evolution, from initial design through homologation updates. That independence could prove decisive in how quickly the car is refined for customer use.
The real question most competitors are not addressing: what happens to the 17-year pipeline of drivers who learned their craft in naturally aspirated, rear-drive Lamborghinis when the car underneath them fundamentally changes character? The answer will play out across the 2027 and 2028 seasons. This weekend at Imola, the Temerario Super Trofeo’s silent appearance in the paddock is the first visible sign that Squadra Corse is already preparing the ground.
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