While plenty of manufacturers race in Le Mans each year, not all of them go out of their way to design and produce a purpose-built racer for the series’ top class—the hypercar class in 2020/2021. Lamborghini has been one of those manufacturers. Except, it sounds like that might be changing.
Lamborghini CEO—and former Ferrari Formula One team principal—Stefano Domenicali has hinted in an interview with Autocar at the Goodwood Festival of Speed that 2021 could be a big year for the marque as it could be gearing up to race in the prestigious 24 hour event. In fact, the project is already underway. Here’s more from the interview:
“There are discussions and we are looking to understand the regulations to see if it is of interest,” said Domenicali. “There is nothing to say until the evaluation is finished, and at that point the answer could be yes or no. For now, it is possible.”
[…]
Domenicali hinted that the Lamborghini SC18 – a one-off project car built on behalf of a customer by Lamborghini’s racing division, Squadra Corse – showed the firm’s capabilities for launching a Le Mans racer if it chose to do so.
“We don’t have the budget to invest in a totally new project, but the SC18 shows that we have a base for what could be an interesting approach,” he said. “The car shows that we have internal capabilities for such a project.”
Starting in 2020, race regulations will allow auto manufacturers to compete with production-related machinery, which has been opening up the ability to build a top-level race car for a ton of marques. Both Aston Martin and Toyota have already confirmed that they’ll be joining. Lamborghini as a third potentiality is honestly pretty awesome.
Lamborghini isn’t unfamiliar with the whole racing thing, given that they have entries in multiple series around the world. Moreover, there was one GT1-class Lamborghini back in the 1990s glory days. That’s not to mention all of the Murcielagos that raced in the later periods of GT1 competition in the ‘00s.
Advertisement
If you’re reading this, Lambo, you have my support.
Leave a Reply
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
