Ferruccio Lamborghini was never much into racing. In contrast to his famous rival, for him it was all about the road cars. But Lamborghini today is a very different company.
The Raging Bull marque is now headed by Stefano Domenicali, the former head of Scuderia Ferrari. It runs its own spec racing series – four of them around the world in fact – and supplies its Huracan GT3 to customer teams for competition in series around the world. But while a return to grand prix racing may not be in the cards at this point, Domenicali appears to have other grandiose motorsport plans in store for Lamborghini.
Word has it that the Italian automaker could jump into the GTE class of sports car racing – what was once known as GT2 and which forms the part of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the FIA World Endurance Championship, and most crucially, the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Huracan would again form the basis, but would need to be substantially upgraded from GT3/Daytona spec to keep pace with the GTE/Le Mans pack. While several Volkswagen Group brands currently offer GT3 cars (including the Bentley Continental GT3 and Audi R8 LMS), only Porsche currently competes in the GTE category with its 911 RSR. A potential Huracan GTE would also compete with similar versions of the Aston Martin Vantage, Ford GT, Corvette C7.R, and perhaps most crucially, the Ferrari 488.
While the plans may be on the drawing board in Sant'Agata, the focus at present is firmly fixed on the launch of the Urus. “As you know, from Lamborghini’s perspective today, the biggest priority is to invest in the new Super SUV launch,” Domenicali told Sportscar365. “For sure we want to invest in the platform of today [GT3] because it’s very strong and as you see the number of customers, the number of teams, that are part of our family is increasing. So this is very positive on us.” Though, it's still “too early to say,” we won't be surprised to see Lamborghini launch a GTE program once the Urus is out and running.
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