The Temerario GT3 was last in practice, and won its first race two days later
Lamborghini's brand-new GT3 car finished dead last in its only dry practice session at Road America. On Sunday it crossed the line first
Pfaff Motorsports took the Lamborghini Temerario GT3, the racing sibling of the road-going Temerario, to its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory at the six-hour Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix at Road America, with Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell sharing the number 9 car to the GTD Pro class win. It was also Pfaff's first win in 36 races, ending a streak that stretched back more than three years.
From last in practice to eighth on the grid
The Temerario's weekend started poorly. It finished last in the only dry practice session and sixth in a wet second session, partly because several rival teams had already tested at Road America ahead of the race while Pfaff had not. The team started eighth after a tricky qualifying, then stayed up late on Saturday night trying a new setup it had no guarantee would work in race conditions.
Two cautions that landed at exactly the right moment
Caldarelli and Mitchell climbed to third within the first 90 minutes, holding position early as the Porsches set the pace. A full-course caution fell just after the car's second pit stop before the halfway mark, handing it positions for free. After a driver change put Caldarelli back in third, a second caution appeared five minutes into his stint when a Porsche Penske prototype beached itself at Turn 6, promoting him to the class lead he held to a caution-flag finish.
A brake upgrade that actually showed up in the results
Pfaff introduced a new Brembo brake package for this race, part of a small upgrade set Lamborghini plans to roll out across the rest of the season, and both drivers credited it with a noticeable pace gain over the previous round. Mitchell called it one part of a broader improvement rather than the whole story.
The end of a three-year drought
Pfaff's last win came at Sebring in March 2023 with a Porsche 911 GT3 R, following back-to-back GTD and GTD Pro titles with the brand in 2021 and 2022. The Canadian team tried a McLaren GT3 Evo and a Lamborghini Huracan in between without a win, so the Temerario ends a genuinely long wait rather than continuing an easy run of form.
A clean race, not a lucky one
The Temerario's only previous podium this season came at Detroit, a result Caldarelli admitted owed something to staying clear of other cars' incidents. Road America was different: strategy, pace, and a car with no reliability issues in its first full season, which Caldarelli called the part that made it feel like a genuine win rather than a fortunate one.
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Two cautions falling exactly when Pfaff needed them is real luck, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest. What actually decided the race is that the team was in position to use that luck both times, with the strategy calls and pit work to convert a caution into a lead rather than just a gap.
Caldarelli's point about scale is worth sitting with too: Lamborghini built a competitive GT3 contender from a standing start against manufacturers with far larger motorsport budgets, and got it reliable enough to run a full stint-perfect endurance race in its first season. The pace will keep coming. The fact that it already does not break is the harder problem solved.
