Lamborghini well prepared for Spa: Bortolotti

Mirko Bortolotti is confident that the Grasser Racing Lamborghini team are sufficiently prepared to compete for top honours at the Spa 24 Hours. 

The new Huracán has shown promise from it’s very first race at Monza, where Andrew Palmer, Fabio Babini and Jeroen Mul dominated before being disqualified for a minor technical irregularity, but is still unproven over 24 hours. 

Nevertheless, Bortolotti – who qualified on pole for the Six Hours of Paul Ricard and delivered the Huracán’s first win as an invitational entry in the ADAC GT Masters at the Red Bull Ring – believes that the car can be a factor on its 24 hour debut, just as the latest evolution of the Audi R8 was at the Nürburgring.

Bortolotti (right) took the new Lambo's first win in Austria (Grasser Racing).

“Up to this point I’m very happy with the work we’ve done,” said Bortolotti. “The pace has been strong in all the races and we’ve done lots of endurance test sessions without having many major issues. We think the car is ready for this race, and it’s obviously a benefit to have a cooperation on some parts with the Audi R8, which managed to win the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. The car is still in the development phase, but we showed in the last couple of races that the pace is quite good, so I’m very confident and optimistic.”

Bortolotti himself is also new to 24 hour racing and has limited mileage in the dark, but has a keen appreciation of what it will take to be at the sharp end on Sunday.

“The Spa 24 hours is a special race and as everyone knows it’s not necessarily going to be won by the fastest car,” he added. “It’s more or less like a poker game, because you can lose everything in one shot. You have to know when to push in the right spots and be mentally clever at other times when it comes to overtaking lapped or slower cars. You can gain a lot of time there but you can also lose the race there, which makes it interesting! You have to be perfect for 24 hours, try to avoid any troubles and then we will see where we are at the end.”