When many IMSA GTD Pro contenders lost their composure late Saturday afternoon in the Detroit Sports Car Classic, Pfaff Motorsports capitalised on their mistakes to take the Lamborghini Temerario GT3’s first-ever podium finish in the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell went from the back of the ten-car GTD Pro grid to finish second in the #9 Lamborghini, just under two seconds behind the winning #3 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Z06 GT3.R of Antonio García and Alexander Sims.
Pfaff Motorsports General Manager, Steve Bortolotti, said to DSC: “I would say it was a Pfaff-style race. We had a clean start, we didn’t make any mistakes in the pits. The drivers, to their credit, didn’t make any errors on track, stayed out of everyone else’s fierce battles, and we picked up the pieces.
“We made a lot of headway on the car this weekend. From where we were in practice and qualifying (on Friday), to where we were in the race, we felt like we made some good steps on the handling of our car. And we’re really proud of the first podium for the Temerario GT3.”
It’s the first IMSA podium for Lamborghini’s new GT3 car in what has been an otherwise-troubled first year of limited-scale competition which also includes GT World Challenge Europe, and the DTM.
The Temerario GT3’s early DTM struggles, in particular, led to a scathing report from the German press in late April, which painted a very bleak picture for the Italian automaker’s first completely in-house developed GT3 car, now and in the immediate future.
Bortolotti and his team have effectively tuned it out, making significant progress with the car in the last three IMSA races, including a competitive GTD one-off at Long Beach, and a top-five finish at Laguna Seca. (And, as we’ve been reminded, Vincenzo Sospiri Racing took the Temerario GT3’s first podium in the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Gold Cup, during Race 2 at Brands Hatch.)
That progress culminated in this first podium, a result which should be a major morale boost for the staff at Lamborghini’s Sant’Agata Bolognese headquarters, and for the Temerario GT3’s fellow launch customers overseas.
“Lamborghini has been an incredible partner through this whole process, and the teams in Europe are making some big strides with the car as well,” Bortolotti stated. “And we’re proud to get the first podium.
“We just want to help them sell some cars in this market and grow the Temerario GT3 platform here in North America. That’s our goal, and that’s our commitment to Lamborghini, and we can only do that by having it on the podium consistently.”
A clean race for the blue and white Lamborghini was a remarkable achievement, considering how many risky overtakes were being made late in the race from other GTD Pro drivers, many of whom didn’t cover themselves in the glory which their reputations suggest.
The only close call with disaster in the last few laps came when Caldarelli tapped the left-rear of Aaron Telitz’s #15 Vasser Sullivan Racing Lexus when attempting to pass him at turn three. Telitz was able to keep all four wheels pointed forward though, and milliseconds later, an incident between RLL Team McLaren’s Max Esterson and Ford Racing’s Dennis Olsen behind them rendered the former incident insignificant.
“He can be spicy when he wants to be,” Bortolotti said of the Italian driver, who brought the car up from eighth place after Mitchell’s 30-minute opening stint. “But I think today, he drove an incredible race.
“He was very calm out there. He was very tactful, and when he was able to take positions, especially his pass on the #1 (Paul Miller Racing BMW), I thought it was clean, but aggressive. He was able to pick up the pieces when others had issues.”
And it should be said that while sheer pace wasn’t the number one factor in Saturday’s result, Caldarelli’s fastest lap of the race standing third among all second-stint drivers suggested that the car had a bit more pace than, say, a llama or a camel.
One day later, fellow customer Rutronik Racing’s Temerario GT3 scored a season-best seventh-place finish at the GT World Challenge Europe 3 Hours of Monza; just like Detroit, Rutronik escaped the worst of a very messy, carnage-filled race to achieve a breakthrough result.
Pfaff Motorsports’ first IMSA podium with the Temerario GT3 came within sight of the team’s home province of Ontario, Canada; another round close to home, the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen, is up next – followed by the team’s actual home race at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (formerly Mosport) in July.
Images © Jack Webster / dailysportscar.com
