Team Insight: SSR Performance

A few centimetres can make all the difference in motorsport. If you don’t believe us, just ask SSR Performance. Without a track limits infringement during DTM season finale at Hockenheim, the first year of the Munich-based team with Lamborghini Squadra Corse could have ended way differently.

Ifs, buts and maybes, however, don’t mean anything when the margins of error are as small as they are in one of the world’s most competitive GT3 categories. Despite the obvious disappointment of missing out on the title, the maiden campaign in the burgeoning partnership between Lamborghini and SSR Performance has been one of incredible success.

The DTM journey for Lamborghini Squadra Corse began in 2021, the inaugural season of GT3 regulations. Before long, the one-team, two-car effort expanded to the current roster of five cars across two factory supported squads.

Having run with a different brand last year, SSR Performance took the decision to team up with Lamborghini for the 2023 campaign, and hit the ground running in sensational fashion, taking pole position and victory in its very first race with the Sant’Agata Bolognese firm at Oschersleben.

“Of course, as a team, we always aim to win so our target before the season began was to win the championship,” team owner Stefan Schlund explains.

“But we didn’t expect it to start so easily at Oschersleben because we didn’t quite know where we stood at that time. It was obviously our first race with Lamborghini, first time in the car so we were very happy.”

Team principal at SSR Performance, Mario Schuhbauer, was also surprised at how quickly success came.

“It was not only a new car for us with the Lamborghini, but it was also a new car for Lamborghini with the Evo2, so nobody knew what the potential of the car was,” he added.

“Of course, we hoped for the success at the first round but we for sure did not expect it!”

Perera produced a stunning lap in qualifying to take pole position and he duly commanded the race from the front, taking a lights-to-flag victory as team-mate Mirko Bortolotti finished eighth – scant reward after running strongly in second place before the pit-stops.

Entering a new season with a new manufacturer is never a completely straightforward task, and for SSR Performance it was no different. But key to making things click from the off was the team spirit and collectiveness, something which is a shared asset with Lamborghini itself.

“At SSR Performance, we do things a little bit differently to some other teams, who might have one guy at the workshop preparing the car and someone else working on it at the track,” begins Schuhauer.

“But the guys who prepare our cars at the workshop are the same guys who are the mechanics and engineers at the racetrack, and we make sure that each car has a dedicated mechanic who prepares that car as well as possible.

“We work closely together all the time, and it is the same group of people at the workshop as at the track; the most special thing about the team and perhaps the reason why we have been so successful in the past is that we are like a family.

“And that is also the reason why we have such a good feeling about Lamborghini Squadra Corse, because it is almost the same thing. We put a huge effort on team bonding because sometimes that is more important than having the best, best guys.”

Schuhauer explains the difference compared to other manufacturers as being “less of a number and more as a family member” and that bond certainly played a crucial role in the early rounds of the DTM season, where results perhaps didn’t go the way either hoped.

A struggle at Zandvoort yielded a solitary podium for Perera, while the Norisring weekend was a damage limitation operation on a circuit which generally suited Porsche rather than the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2.

However, brighter times were on the horizon at the Nürburgring, where Bortolotti launched himself right back into the championship mix, with a pole position and victory in the opening race of the weekend. 

“Because the DTM is so competitive, qualifying is so important,” says Schlund. “If you look back on the history of past races, a lot of the races are won by the car which starts from pole position, so we knew that we needed to get qualifying right.

“So, it was great for us to know that we had the speed to be on pole with Mirko and the knowledge of how to work the car and work with Mirko. It was maybe the easiest victory for us because he led from start to finish and the strategy worked really well too.”

While technical issues ruled Bortolotti out of the second race at the Nürburgring, two more wins on consecutive weekends at the Laustizring and Sachsenring followed, which left the team and driver heading into the final round in title contention.

“Lausitzring [where we finished second in race one and won race two] was really as close to a perfect weekend that you could get, for the #92 car at least,” Schuhbauer reflects.

“We had always been fighting for the championship since the start of the season, but it was here that we really made a point, like it was not like we were playing or something, we showed we were big players and serious about the championship.”

The story of the final round of the year at Hockenheim is well-known. A near-certain pole position for Bortolotti in the first session was denied due to a track limits infringement. The margins were close, miniscule even, but the result was that the #92 had to fight from eighth on the grid while title rival Thomas Preining raced clear to victory.

Bortolotti kept the battle alive until Sunday morning thanks to a superb drive to fifth, but the title was eventually settled in second qualifying. It was a chance missed and a case of what could have been.

Despite the frustration, the 2023 campaign proved SSR Performance and Lamborghini were a force to be reckoned with, especially impressive given the relative unfamiliarity between both factions at the start of the year. 

“In the past, we always had a partnership with other teams when running cars, and this is the first year we have been doing things really by ourselves,” says Schlund. “When we ran Porsches, we had support from the Manthey team. 

“And at the beginning of the year, to see everything working so well straight away was really encouraging for us.”

Schuhbauer added: “The quality of the cars we used last year was clearly very high, there is no argument there, but you cannot win a championship just with quality. 

“What makes the biggest difference to me is that with other manufacturers you are just a number, but with Lamborghini it is like you are part of the family. We work closely together and that is, for me, the most important factor in being successful. 

“It feels like a family for everyone in the team as well. We had a few mechanical issues throughout the season which maybe cost us the championship, but these are for sure things to work on and improve.”