Mirko Bortolotti has achieved more in GT racing than most could ever dream of: the Daytona 24 Hours, Sebring and multiple top-tier championships are all part of a glittering career that’s still going strong.
However, for an entire decade one race alluded him and his Lamborghini team…the Spa 24 Hours.
So disastrous and unfortunate were their efforts there, the Italian tells DSC that he “started to doubt we would ever pull it off”.
However last year, after over a decade of trying, Bortolotti and the Grasser Lamborghini squad finally conquered Spa for the manufacturer with their first win, and in some fashion.
High drama characterised an attritional race which ended with a crescendo, appropriate for the journey he and Lamborghini had been on together, ultimately culminating in their finest hour.
The Italian first became involved with the Raging Bull early on in his career, competing in its one-make Super Trofeo series in 2014, before becoming one of its Squadra Corse works drivers the year after.
This coincided with the debut of the brand’s Huracán GT3 car, the Italian being central to both its development and, ultimately, its success.
A 2017 Blancpain GT Endurance Cup title for Bortolotti was followed by a pair of Daytona wins in 2018 and 2019, as well as Sebring in the latter year – but Spa was always the ultimate prize.
“Since the first day I joined Lamborghini back in 2014, we were always talking about this race,” he asserts.
“We never give up but at some stage, when you go through a lot of setbacks, a lot of situations that could have been avoidable, sometimes we have DNFs with five-Euro pieces that were just destroying our race… Sometimes the performance was not there, but most of the time we were competitive, but we were not able to get the result.”
Lining up 18th for the start of last year’s race, following a post-Superpole time penalty, there was little to indicate 2025 was going to be any different.
Spa is a 24-hour bout like few others, and Bortolotti is well-placed to explain its idiosyncrasies, having been on the wrong end of a fair of them.
“It’s not comparable to Daytona, to Le Mans or Nurburgring, for example,” he says. “It’s just a different one.
“You need to be in the right place, at the right time. A good full-course yellow can be a game-changer.
“On the other hand, you can have a wrong call, maybe it helps your opposition, so you’re really never sure of the outcome of this race until the chequered flag.
“One tiny mistake can be game over, if you overdrive the car in certain areas, maybe get some punctures.
“It’s also one of the most physical races in general – a sprint from start to finish.”
2025 was one of Spa’s most intense races yet. The event was barely an hour old before seeing two huge crashes which caused two full-course yellows, but Bortolotti and his #63 team-mates Jordan Pepper and Luca Engstler survived the chaos to emerge in the lead by the halfway point.
The Rutronik Porsche team managed to seize the lead from the Lambo with an off-sequence strategy – before Bortolotti had something to say about it.
The Italian was in the midst of an incredible near-triple sprint, and hunted down the #96 Rutronik man Sven Müller, shadowing the Porsche before it suddenly suffered a puncture at Blanchimont prior to its final stop, allowing Bortolotti back into the lead.
Then, it was Bortolotti’s turn to almost throw victory away. At his final scheduled stop during his eviscerating run to the finish, the Italian stalled the car.
“It felt like a few minutes, but it was only eight seconds,” he grimaces. “I remember it too well, unfortunately, because it’s something that I don’t wish anyone to happen, especially when you’re fighting for such a big win, and you know it’s your last pit stop.
“Luckily, I stayed cool and just did a reset, and everything worked afterwards – but I also heard from the team after the race that if you reacted in the wrong way, you could have burned the starter motor, then it would have been game over.
“You see how close it can be from success to complete disaster.”
After all their misfortune, the racing gods appeared to be smiling on driver and team: Bortoloti brought the car home for a hugely popular – and historic – win, but not before one more dramatic moment.
Emerging from the car spent in the middle of intense heat, the Lamborghini driver needed immediate medical attention to treat his soaring body temperature.
“When I finished the race, I felt amazing, I could have done another stint,” he says. “But it was super hot, just like this year, and it’s a long, tough race.
“I enjoyed that final lap after the chequered flag, coming back to the pits. I did quite a slow lap, so all the temperature from engine, from the whole car, came into the cockpit.
“We didn’t run any air conditioning and stuff like that, so it started to become super hot, super quickly – then I didn’t feel that well.
“But honestly, I don’t mind ending up in a medical center after such a win!”
After the triumph of last year, Bortolotti and his team are trying to take inspiration from that journey as it embarks on another.
That Spa win was the Huracán’s last hurrah, with the manufacturer now developing its new Temerario.
It’s proved a challenging project. A new twin-turbo V8 engine marks a big departure from the Huracán’s naturally-aspirated V10, while Temerario teams have spoken of issues both under braking and responsiveness on turn-in, in-turn limiting performance.
“There’s not a single thing that reminds me of the Huracán, it’s completely, completely different,” Bortolotti emphasises.
“There’s nothing that can be comparable. It’s just a completely new car. It’s not an update, it’s not an ‘evo’. It’s from scratch, starting from power train, aerodynamics, the way it behaves on braking, seating position, cockpit-wise, everything is different.
“I adapt to anything. I’ve been running LMP2 and GT3 in the past, Hypercar and GT3 from one week to the next. I’ve done a lot of single seaters, just give me a steering wheel and four tyres, and I’m happy.”
The car has proved reliable though, and a maiden podium for Lamborghini at the last DTM round, plus a top-five finish for Bortolotti at that same Lausitzring event, means there’s already light at the end of the tunnel.
This weekend, Bortolotti and Grasser start 20th in their new #63 Temerario GT3. It’s not that far away from where they won the race last year…
Images courtesy of SRO/JEOP, Marcel Wulf and Frozenspeed
