Sanna (Lamborghini): “We’re All Proud To Be Here in the U.S.”

With the conclusion of the Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo North America, Europe and Asia championships on Friday, focus for the four-day event at Sebring International Raceway now shifts to this weekend’s Lamborghini Blancpain Super Trofeo World Final.

The North American races have been separate from the Europe and Asia races, which ran combined sessions on Thursday and Friday.

Now, with titles decided and all the cars set to come together – except now split by category into Huracán PRO and PRO-AM, and Huracán AM and Gallardo – Sebring can properly play host to the combined World Final for the first time over the next two days.

After prior runs at Vallelunga, Italy in 2013 and Sepang, Malaysia last year, legendary Sebring is the first U.S. facility to host the World Final.

It hosts the biggest field too, with the field of 66 cars more than 20 more than raced in Malaysia last year, which was a jump on the inaugural event in 2013.

“First of all, we’re all proud to be here in the United States,” Giorgio Sanna, Head of Lamborghini Motorsport, told Sportscar365.

“On having 66 cars, it’s a result of the hard work we do every day. We grow up step by step, always.

“But, it looks that we are going the right way. All the teams and drivers are proud to be part of this enthusiastic family.”

Ordinarily the competitors in the Sebring paddock stretch from the inside by Turn 17 all the way through the length of the Ullman Straight down to the exit of Turn 16.

But all Lamborghini Super Trofeo competitors are housed just closer to the Turn 17 side. The European and Asian entrants are underneath tents, with U.S. teams and their respective transporters on the other side of the dividing line in the paddock.

Sanna noted how impressed he’s been with the growth of this race over the last three years.

“It started with long work, day-by-day, made with passion, with big effort from the company side,” he said.

“We trust the motorsport activities, related to the customer racing activities. This is a huge effort and investment from the company side.”

National champions this season include Richard Antinucci (U.S.), Patrick Kujala (Europe) and Yuan Bo and Edoardo Liberati (Asia PRO-AM).

Antinucci seeks to join Andrew Palmer, the inaugural overall World Final World Champion, along with Kevin Conway and Lawson Aschenbach (Pro-Am) as Americans who’ve won their class at the World Final.

Others who’ve been quick this week include Madison Snow, Corey Lewis, Justin Marks, Cedric Sbirrazzuoli, Andrea Amici and Josh Hurley, among others, in the U.S. ranks.

The European series standouts beyond the aforementioned drivers have included Patric Niederhauser, Riccardo Agostini, Loris Spinelli, Florian Spengler, Sergio Campana, Fabrizio Crestani, Daniel Zampieri, Mikhail Stepanov, Harald Schlegelmilch and more.

Bo and Liberati, and Afiq Yazid, have pretty much locked out the top of the timesheets in the Asian series.

A warmup session and two rounds of qualifying occur today before the first of two races apiece for the World Final.