Lamborghini SC63 reaches the finish at Lone Star

Lamborghini Iron Lynx showed improved performance but was ultimately left to rue two late penalties in the Lone Star Le Mans, round six of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship season at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas.

The #63 crew of Edoardo Mortara, Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat enjoyed a superb start to the race – with Mortara making up eight positions on the opening lap – and the Lamborghini SC63 ran strongly on the cusp of the top 10 for the majority of the 6-hour race.

However, a drivethrough penalty for a Full Course Yellow infringement with just over an hour remaining and a further 45-second post-race penalty for exceeding track limits meant they ended up an unrepresentative 14^th at the chequered flag.

Meanwhile, in the LMGT3 class, it was another frustrating weekend as damage from contact lost the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 of Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting multiple laps approaching the halfway stage. The team made the subsequent repairs and it eventually finished 13^th. The #60 entry of Claudio Schiavoni, Franck Perera and Matteo Cressoni finished 12^th after receiving a drivethrough of its own.

Attention now shifts to the penultimate round of the WEC campaign, which takes place in just two weeks’ time at the Fuji International Speedway in Japan. It will be another new challenge for the Lamborghini Iron Lynx team, who will discover the circuit for the first time, with further development and performance the natural objective before the season concludes in Bahrain in November.

Free Practice and Qualifying – Hypercar

Although the team had previously tested at the COTA track, last December in the early stages of the development of the Lamborghini SC63 and more recently in the Michelin tyre test, the team nevertheless arrived in Texas on something of an exploratory mission. A partial resurfacing of the circuit and vastly contrasting weather meant conditions were far different to what they had experienced before. Both ambient and track temperatures were high all weekend so particular emphasis on Friday focused on adapting to the venue and working on the ideal setup and tyre strategy for the race. The SC63 benefitted from a weight break in the Balance of Performance, meaning it was the lightest car in the field, and the #63 finished opening practice 12^th quickest. The team then focused on race runs primarily in the second session, with Kvyat’s time of 1m53.340 good enough for 11^th. Having encountered a few minor issues in final practice and with focus now on the race, Kvyat qualified 18^th on the grid with his fastest time of the weekend, a 1m52.426.

Race – Hypercar

With temperatures of well over 30 degrees and far higher inside the cockpit, each driver completed single stints, with Mortara taking the start at the wheel of the #63. As the lights went out, Mortara made a stunning launch and made up six positions by the time the field exited the first turn before gaining another two places around the opening lap to run a hugely impressive 10^th. Throughout the first hour, the SC63 remained comfortably in the points-paying positions before Mortara pitted for a pair of new medium tyres on the left side only. Bortolotti took over for the second hour and, despite the car having to serve a five-second penalty for overtaking an LMGT3 car off-track and dropping to 13^th, closed down a six-second margin to the #5 Porsche to virtually nothing by the end of his stint. Proof of the improvement in the SC63’s overall performance was evident in the strong overtakes of both the #5 Porsche and the #93 Peugeot with which the #63 battled before halfway, despite suffering the age-old problem of following in dirty aerodynamic air. Unfortunately, a drivethrough penalty for speeding in the FCY zone cost the car two positions while a further caution period dropped Kvyat another spot to the #99 Porsche. The pace then fluctuated in the final hour, having performed admirably on the medium tyre, but a post-race drivethrough converted into 45-seconds demoted the #63 – which finished just 1.778s behind the #93 on the road – to 14^th in the final classification.

Free Practice and Qualifying – LMGT3

The weekend began quietly for the pair of Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2s, both of which remained the heaviest cars in the LMGT3 field despite losing 13kg of BOP weight from the previous round in Brazil. The #85 Iron Dames crew of Bovy, Frey and Gatting initially struggled in first free practice, ending 17^th of the 18 runners and two seconds off the ultimate pace. Things gradually improved in the second session despite spending a considerable amount of time in the pits as the team worked on setup alterations. Gatting’s time of 2m06.453 was good enough for the 11th best time while 14^th in final practice on Saturday appeared to suggest a difficult weekend for the Dames. However, by qualifying, the #85 seemed to have found pace and, with Bovy at the wheel during the 12-minute session, easily secured its place in the top 10 Hyperpole shootout by setting the second quickest time. In the shootout, Bovy was again second quickest, but a power steering issue meant she was unable to complete her final flying lap, narrowly missing out on pole position by just over a tenth of a second. For the #60 Iron Lynx combination, free practice was all about getting Schiavoni up to speed with the COTA track, with lap-times getting faster and faster with each time in FP1. Perera then took the car to the fifth fastest time in FP2 and FP3, with Schiavoni setting his best time of the weekend en route to 18^th on the grid.

Race – LMGT3

Despite the high temperatures making life far from ideal, Bovy produced a pair of excellent stints to keep the #85 Huracán firmly in the mix for victory. Having lost out to the #55 Ferrari at turn one, Bovy responded on the following lap to reclaim second place, and then set about chasing down the leading Aston Martin. What had been a six-second deficit was reduced to less than a second by the time she came in for the first pit-stop, and the #85 stayed within two seconds during the second stint before Frey took over. Unfortunately, having fended off an attack from the BMW behind, Frey made contact with the second-placed Corvette as the Swiss driver tried to make a pass on the inside of turn 15. This broke the right rear suspension of the car, effectively ending their charge before half-distance. Having repaired the car, Gatting returned to the track and finished the race in 13^th place while the #60 – having received a drivethrough penalty for abusing track limits – missed out on the points in 12^th.

Quotes

Mirko Bortolotti: “Generally it has been a tough weekend but, once again, we managed to reach the minimum goal of finishing the race, in really demanding and hot conditions. It really put us to our limits, the team, the car and obviously us the drivers inside the cockpit. So, I am happy that we finished the race and had a solid performance, but it’s true that we are still struggling quite a bit on the performance side as expected, so there is still a bit of work to be done on that side to improve.”

Daniil Kvyat: “I think we showed our fighting spirit, all three of us and the whole team today, I thought it was great. It was a very tough race, we still have some things to tidy up around the car and we are still working on it and gathering data, sometimes at the expense of being [cool] inside the car, but that is part of life. In terms of the car, I was happy with my qualifying lap this weekend and we were close to some of the Porsche drivers but that is our gap at the moment, we are a little bit off the pace. There are some moments during the race where we are as competitive as the others and sometimes, we might even have the edge, but it doesn’t last long and it’s not consistent enough. But we know that if we bring the upgrades in the areas we need to improve, then we can make a huge step forward for sure.”

Edoardo Mortara: “It’s not really the result we were wanting, we were expecting to be slightly more competitive here, but still there are some positives to take from the race. We made a very strong start, passing a lot of cars from the back of the queue; we were basically fighting for P10 the entire race and, unfortunately, we had a couple of mistakes which costs us a few seconds. So, the goal for us is to tidy up these things and execute everything better in the next races in order to extract the maximum out of the car. I think there is still a little bit more to extract, obviously it’s a painful race weekend because we would have loved to have gone in the top 10 and to shine more, but slowly but surely, we are fighting and getting there”