Pfaff’s Motorsports general manager Steve Bortolotti looked back at a milestone race at last month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, in which the fan-favourite Canadian team achieved almost all of the goals that it had set for the new Lamborghini Temerario GT3’s world racing debut.
Bortolotti said to DSC, “It went really well, I think. We were proud to make it to the end of the race. That was the goal going into it, and we executed on it. I was very proud of everybody at Lamborghini and Pfaff Motorsports for working well together, and achieving our collective goal that we set for ourselves for the event.”
Pfaff’s line-up of Lamborghini factory drivers Andrea Caldarelli, Sandy Mitchell, and Franck Perera drove the #9 Lamborghini home to a tenth-place finish in GTD Pro, completing 319 laps and all 12 hours of racing from morning to night.
Months of development, design, and testing culminated in the famous red and black buffalo plaid Pfaff Temerario’s first race weekend, where a crowd of over 115,000 spectators got their first chance to see and hear the car for the first time.
“Even though it was a new car, we went feeling ready because we had done so much mileage in November (testing),” Bortolotti recalled. “Prior to that, to Lamborghini’s credit, they were very inclusive of all the teams, not just Pfaff Motorsports, in the development process. And that ultimately allowed us to be ready, frankly, for the debut of the new car. I was proud that we accomplished our goal: To last the 12 hours.”
Few if any GTD Pro teams had an answer for the dominance of the Porsche 911 GT3 Rs of Manthey and AO Racing, and the Pfaff Temerario never really lit up the timing screens with its pace. That said, finishing two laps down was more the product of a minor mechanical issue, rather than a pace deficit.
“We had one small brake issue with an hour and a half to go that made us lose a lap. I think we were really on pace to be on the lead lap, which was one of those ‘nice to have’ goals,” Bortolotti admitted. “Which is a bit of a bummer, but at the same time, it was an issue that we had not seen in any of the testing.
“At some point, we have to just start, right? You have to just go enter a race, and there’s certain things that you can’t just replicate in a test, no matter how hard you try, what a race will do to a car. Anyway, we were glad that the car wasn’t damaged in having a brake issue, because that’s obviously a dangerous thing. We were able to rectify the problem and get back out there, and get to the finish, which was ultimately the goal.”
Even if the new car wasn’t in a place to compete for a podium or victory in its very first race, making it to the checkered flag clears a big hurdle for the program as Pfaff embarks on the rest of its maiden season with the Temerario GT3.
This includes a one-off GTD class entry this weekend at Long Beach, where Pfaff will run the number 46, and Caldarelli will be joined by talented young Canadian driver Zachary Vanier.
Starting at Long Beach, Pfaff is ready to start taking the necessary steps to unlock more performance out of the Temerario GT3, which presents new challenges for the engineers and drivers alike. “I think the aero window of the most modern GT3-spec cars is different from what the Huracán was built off of. So while there are a lot of similarities, the car is built and designed to a whole different aero specification,” Bortolotti explained. “We’re not there yet. I mean, we’re certainly getting there, I think we’re finding our way forward.
“We’ve got a robust test plan throughout the summer to get the car dialed in. We have a test at Laguna (Seca) after Long Beach, which will be great. And then we’ll test at CTMP, we’ll test at a few tracks that we feel like we can learn something and apply. It’s probably too early to say at this point, from a handling standpoint, but I know the drivers are very happy with the window we got the car into for the race.”
And when it comes to having the right drivers to get the Temerario GT3 through its first race in a safe and productive fashion, Bortolotti couldn’t ask for better players than Caldarelli, Mitchell, and Perera to help push the Temerario’s development along – not just at Sebring, but for the remaining races on the IMSA calendar. “The three of them get along extremely well together, both in terms of a working relationship and debrief, but also off the track as well,” he says of his drivers. “I got a glimpse of it at the test because those three drivers were at the test we were doing in November.
“But getting a chance to see it in a competitive environment was really great. I couldn’t be happier to have checked that box with the three of them, and look forward to working with Franck again at Petit (Le Mans) later in the year.”
In the time between Sebring and Long Beach, the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 has also made its European racing debut, as Grasser Racing Team and Rutronik Racing entered the car at the six-hour GT World Challenge Europe opener at Circuit Paul Ricard. Though, a bit like Pfaff’s run at Sebring, finishing the race was the first and most important objective (and one that only GRT was fortunate enough to complete).
But whether it’s GRT, Rutronik, or Pfaff, these teams aren’t just here to make up the numbers in the long term. These are competitive, proud teams with track records of recent and relevant success.
A little less than a year and a half ago, Pfaff Motorsports was given new life and purpose when partnering with Lamborghini for the 2025 IMSA season. It is now the flag carrier for Lamborghini in North American sports car racing, following the end of the SC63 prototype programme. Now that the Temerario has shown that it can withstand 12 intense hours of racing around Sebring, Bortolotti and his team want to snap a painful winless drought in the WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, one that’s now surpassed three years and two manufacturer changes.
“We went to that race [Sebring] with the goal of finishing, right? Now, those goals are going to change, come Long Beach, come Laguna,” he declared. “We got the Twelve Hour box checked and now we need to go and change those goals to be podiums and top-fives, and then hopefully a race win before the year’s end.
“Our competitors are all pushing to do the same, but we want to be contending for race wins and podiums, week in and week out. And as the season gets towards the back half, that’s the goal. And if we’re consistently contending for podiums and wins, I truly believe that we’ll get one.”
Images © Jack Webster / Dailysportscar.com
