New Super Trofeo Car to be Based on Temerario GT3

Image: Lamborghini

Lamborghini’s upcoming Temerario Super Trofeo car will be based on its GT3 counterpart according to the manufacturer’s head of motorsport Maurizio Leschiutta, who confirmed that development has already begun.

Set for a 2027 debut in Lamborghini’s single-make series, the new V8 twin turbocharged model will share its platform from the soon-to-be-launched GT3 car that’s set for its first race appearance next year.

“It’s a derivative of the GT3 car,” Leschiutta told Sportscar365. “The GT3 car will be presented some time this summer. Then we will begin testing in the early part of the summer and the Super Trofeo will go in parallel with this.

“To be able to produce the volumes we need to produce, we need to start producing the cars in 2026, to have them available for 2027.

“It is very much already a work in progress.”

With the previous-generation Huracan Super Trofeo based directly on the road car, it marks a significant new direction for the Italian manufacturer, which is also undertaking its first ground-up GT3 car.

“It just makes sense,” said Leschiutta. “Because the core car is the same and there are some economies of scale, for example on the engine, the powertrain is much more production powertrain compared to the GT3 powertrain, which is much more race-specific.

“That’s not something that a customer will see because in the end they see 600 horsepower coming from the rear end.

“What we have to do is build into this the drivability that is necessary for the type of customer that we’ll race in this car, not only in terms of the chassis setup but also in terms of the drivability of the engine and the systems.”

Leschiutta said the new Super Trofeo car is aimed to create an improved balance between performance and handling, specifically for gentlemen drivers in mind.

“The Super Trofeo drivers are not professional drivers,” he said. “They are aspiring professional drivers in some cases and in other cases they are people who do it as a hobby.

“As a result you have to cater to a wide variety of skills and expectations.

“If you think about it, a race car is an easy car, technically, to do because it has one function: to go fast and not break down.

“A road car is enormously more complex because it needs to meet a wide variety of requirements and expectations from a wide customer base.

“On top of that it needs to meet a wide variety of homologation requirements across the world in global markets.

“It’s much more difficult to build a passenger car than it is to build a race car. So when you derive the race car from a passenger car, to make the GT3 and stop along the way to make the Super Trofeo, you have a very good product.”

While the current Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2, which has been in use since 2022, has oftentimes been faster than its GT3 counterpart due to Balance of Performance restrictions in multi-class competition, Leschiutta indicted that Lamborghini isn’t looking at a specific lap time limitation for the Temerario Super Trofeo.

“We look at is to make the car more drivable for a customer that has a smaller skillset compared to who drives a GT3 car,” he said.

“On top of that, if the Super Trofeo cars are used in national championships, those [series] would limit the car’s performance to fit into the box that they want it to.

“The Super Trofeos race against each other. The absolute limit in terms of performance is defined a little bit by how we decide to make the car.”