Registered only in the IMSA SportsCar Championship this year, with a solo entry that's only doing the Endurance Cup rounds, the Lamborghini SC63 has yet to achieve any significant results since its racing debut in early 2024.
And even though it equalled its best result in competition at the end of June, finishing seventh in the 6 Hours of the Glen, the SC63 has not had its future clarified. The way forward remains uncertain at the time of writing.
How did we get here?
Although Lamborghini is a sportscar manufacturer, it never really sought to shine in motorsport - with little trace of a credible official project at the top level until 2024.
The few private ones that have been carried out have rarely been successful. Recall in particular its attempt to enter Formula 1 in the 1980s-90s, but also of its unsuccessful efforts at the Le Mans 24 Hours in GT, with six retirements in as many starts.
With the SC63, we are talking about a factory effort. However, like Aston Martin's LMH programme, it would never have seen the light of day without external financial support, in this case from Iron Lynx.
The Italian team of Déborah Mayer and Claudio Schiavoni bought Prema Racing in 2021. A world-renowned single-seater team with many titles in Formula 4, Formula 3 and Formula 2, Prema discovered endurance racing for itself through LMP2 in 2022 and 2023.
"Ever since we announced our intention to race in the LMDh racing series, it was clear to us that Iron Lynx was the right partner to take such an important step with," said Stephen Winkelmann, Lamborghini chairman and CEO, in November of 2022. "Over the years, Iron Lynx has proven to be a fast, strong and successful entity, just like the Lamborghini motorsport department."
But let's be honest: even more than a sporting partner, Lamborghini has found a financial partner in Iron Lynx, which is even said to be the real instigator of the project, and was reportedly in contact with other manufacturers before Lamborghini.
The project's dependence on this contribution is also what's placing its future in jeopardy.
A complex gestation?
To carry out its project, Lamborghini reportedly considered using Audi's LMDh car - Audi having officially cancelled its programme in August 2022. The car, which shared the Multimatic chassis and 4.5-litre twin-turbo V8 engine with the Porsche 963, was nevertheless completed and ready for its shakedown. But despite the two brands belonging to the same group, the deal fell through, mainly due to the exorbitant price tag.
ORECA and Dallara did not respond favourably to its request, so Lamborghini turned to Ligier, which did not yet have any LMDh customers. For the engine, the decision was made to opt for a 3.8-litre V8 twin-turbo designed in collaboration with Autotecnica Motori. This was a logical choice given the engines used in Lamborghini's production cars.
The initial idea was to enter two cars in the World Endurance Championship and at least one in IMSA. But by February 2023, rumours began to circulate - which were later confirmed - of lowered targets, with only one car in both championships. At the same time, numerous requests took up valuable design time, causing the project to fall behind schedule.
The SC63 was unveiled on July 13, 2023, at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and the shakedown took place on August 2 at Vallelunga.
And some observers were immediately surprised by the relative lack of testing carried out, given that a manufacturer is not limited in the number of tests until the car is homologated. 10,000km before the start of competition is just not a lot.
It should be remembered that a major crash by Mirko Bortolotti at Paul Ricard in August caused a significant delay in the development programme. Between the production of spare parts, which had not been anticipated, and the fact that a car had to be sent quickly to the United States to undergo windtunnel testing at Windsheer for homologation, the programme came to a grinding halt that day.
The lessons of season one
Due to timing issues, the SC63 skipped the 2024 Daytona 24 Hours and made its racing debut in the Qatar 1812km, where it finished 14th after suffering a suspension problem. Seventh in the Sebring 12 Hours, it finished the Le Mans 24 Hours in 10th and 13th place, confirming its promising level of reliability.
"To finish with both cars at Le Mans on our debut here and have one car finish in the top 10 is an amazing achievement," said Bortolotti at the time. "Of course, we still have a lot of work to do, we know that, but we're going to enjoy this result and focus on the next steps."
Although this was the first time a Lamborghini had finished this race, it will unfortunately remain the project's best result in the WEC - where it recorded two retirements in the remaining four races. But with a car lacking track time and only one entry against at least two for the rest of the field apart from Cadillac, how could it have hoped for anything better?
To succeed, you have to give yourself the means to achieve your ambitions, and it would seem that this was not the case. Unless the resources needed to fight at front were simply underestimated.
"It's been a really challenging and difficult season for us, obviously the first season for Iron Lynx and Lamborghini in the WEC and we expected to have some difficulties coming into the year," said Bortolotti after the Bahrain 8 Hours. "But I must say that towards the end of the year we were still struggling with the car. It's been a disappointing year, honestly."
In IMSA, despite retiring at Watkins Glen, Romain Grosjean took advantage of the rain to lead the race at Indianapolis for 10 laps, before setting the fastest race lap at Petit Le Mans. But that wasn't enough to put a smile back on the Italian team's faces. Especially as, behind the scenes, the split with Iron Lynx was finalised and dark clouds were gathering over the programme.
The Iron Lynx split
Neither Lamborghini nor Iron Lynx has ever really commented on this split. Lamborghini's chief technical officer Rouven Mohr simply stated last January: "As in any relationship, there are times when it is best to part ways."
As we explained above, Iron Lynx was more than just a racing team for this project. Without its funding, the SC63 would never have existed. With the Prema Racing team at the helm, operations were managed fairly well.
Clearly, that's not where the problem lies. The problem stems from the car, which suffers from a severe lack of development.
But above all, there was an unexpected regulatory change in 2025 that had an impact on the financial investment required. The ACO and the FIA announced from the sidelines of the 92nd Le Mans 24 Hours that, from 2025, manufacturers would have no choice but to enter at least two cars for the entire WEC season.
But who will pay for this extra cost? Iron Lynx? Lamborghini? Clearly, the two entities never found common ground. It might have been possible to focus on the WEC by fielding a second car and skipping IMSA - but Lamborghini cannot do without IMSA.
"The WEC decided last year to change the rules, which is not in line with our budget strategy," Winkelmann said. "That is why we have decided to end this commitment [WEC]."
Apart from the fact that IMSA organises the Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America, a lucrative competition for the brand, there are also obvious marketing reasons. Last year, Automobili Lamborghini achieved the best annual result in its history with a total of 10,687 cars delivered, including 3712 for the Americas (+7%).
"We had to refocus our efforts a little bit," explained the new head of Lamborghini Motorsport Maurizio Leschiutta to The Race a few weeks ago. "So we said we would focus on one car for the IMSA Endurance Cup."
With the split from Iron Lynx now finalised, Lamborghini has been working hard to find solutions. The decision was therefore taken to entrust Riley with operations and logistics, in return for financial compensation, of course. This is a considerable challenge for this well-established American company, which has been competing in GTD (GT3) and LMP2 in recent years.
Where are the results?
"The Lamborghini SC63 is a very good car," Grosjean said at the end of last season. "There are some things that are very good, but we also need to make one or two major changes, which should enable us to take a significant step forward.
"For example, we're not comfortable on bumpy tracks," he added. "We're clearly not at the top level in terms of suspension and damping. We're also suffering from significant excess weight, which we're trying to eliminate."
At the start of the 2024 season, the excess weight was around 30kg. This was notably due to a particularly heavy engine, which exceeded the minimum weight of 180kg imposed by the regulations. A few kilos were lost at Le Mans and today the excess is said to be between 10kg and 15kg. In addition, the rear suspension, which Lamborghini has entrusted to KW, is also causing concern.
The lack of spare parts was also a worry through that first season. For financial reasons? Perhaps...
In any case, the racing team had to juggle a limited stock of parts between the WEC and IMSA, with such a tight schedule that some of the parts used were not the latest versions, ie the lightest ones.
This year, at the Daytona 24 Hours, the SC63 was fitted with redesigned valve chambers. But twice, at Daytona and then at the IMSA sanctioned test at Sebring, the V8 engine failed.
Despite modifications, the SC63 driven by Grosjean, Daniil Kvyat and Bortolotti did not make it to the finish line at Sebring either. This was down to "a broken exhaust which could have caused heat damage to other driveline components", Lamborghini explained.
The bid to develop (and the constraints)
The SC63 therefore suffers from two major problems: a rear suspension that needs improvement, and significant excess weight that prevents the car from performing at the minimum weight allowed by the BoP: 1032kg at Sebring. Despite the efforts made, more needs to be done. So what are the plans?
"Governance has introduced the need to return to the windtunnel to rehomologate the car next winter," Leschiutta told The Race in March. "As they've shifted the homologation window, like most of our competitors, we need to evaluate doing an aero evo on the car to improve performance. So, we will be looking at this as one of the approaches.
"The second one will be, of course, weight reduction. We have to put the car on a diet. I know it's possible because we did it at BMW when I was there [as the LMDh project leader]. So we're already taking steps and we hope to be down to a value very close to the minimum weight [1030kg] for Petit Le Mans. We need to optimise things. The devil is in the details and I think there is a margin.
"And the third point is optimising the rear suspension, which is giving us a little bit of an issue. The target is to improve the traction and compliance of the rear end. KW is our partner for the dampers, and the architecture on the rear axle is not easy to manage. It is one of the things we want to optimise."
Against the advice of some, the Italian manufacturer opted for a roll-heave decoupled suspension, which on paper seems optimal but is not without its complexities. Various solutions were tested at the end of last season, particularly in terms of displacement, but were not adopted for reasons that are unclear to us but are probably, once again, related to the budget.
Lamborghini has to contend with another constraint: the number of test days, which is limited by the regulations. "We have to make the best of them," Leschiutta replied.
With only one car entered in the IMSA series, Lamborghini has only six days available, which does not leave much time to develop new parts, even though it obviously has a simulator and a 7-post test rig at its disposal.
The uncertainty
All the listed developments have been tested and validated. Some were even supposed to be implemented on the SC63 for the Watkins Glen race in June. But that didn’t happen - although it didn't prevent the car from matching its best result with a seventh-place finish, after having led 23 laps thanks to Grosjean, who once again managed to master the rain.
Combined with its absence from Michelin's latest 2026 tyre development session held two days after the race, this has cast serious doubt on the future of the programme.
To continue its LMDh project, Lamborghini has been searching for several months for a racing team or partner capable of financing it. But so far those efforts have proven fruitless, and it's hard to see who would be willing to invest as much money as Iron Lynx had done in such a venture.
In the meantime, this has not stoped Lamborghini Squadra Corse and its partners from continuing their work. After a visit to Morse Measurements (provider of suspension kinematics and compliance testing) on July 28-29, the SC63 will be at Zeta PVT's 7-post shaker testing facility in North Carolina across August 7-13.
A rollout is then scheduled for August 26-27 at Carolina Motorsport Park, followed by two proper test sessions at Road Atlanta on September 2-3 and Indianapolis on September 6-7.
At Indianapolis (September 21) and Petit Le Mans (October 11), the SC63 should appear with these aforementioned evolutions. Two more chances to prove that this car does have real potential, sadly still untapped.
Will it ever be fully realised? As of this writing, doubts about the SC63's presence on the grid in 2026 are, unfortunately, more than justified.
