Bortolotti ‘Staying Realistic’ for Lamborghini SC63’s Race Debut

Mirko Bortolotti believes Lamborghini Iron Lynx should ‘keep both feet on the ground’ as it heads into the competition debut with its SC63 LMDh car in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The Italian marque is set to make its first WEC start, as well as its maiden outing in the top class, when it joins the Hypercar category for the Qatar 1812km on March 2.

Bortolotti, who competed in WEC last year as part of Prema’s two-car LMP2 effort, will share the No. 63 car with Daniil Kvyat and Edoardo Mortara, with the latter making his first appearance as a Lamborghini factory driver.

Lamborghini has been working through the final stages of preparations ahead of its debut, with motorsport boss Giorgio Sanna recently revealing that the SC63 completed the homologation process in January.

It also shook down the first race chassis, which will join the 18-car Hypercar class at the Lusail International Circuit, shortly before the Rolex 24 at Daytona.

“I feel that on one side, it’s a huge privilege and a pleasure to be in WEC competing at the top stage of sports car racing,” Bortolotti told Sportscar365.

“It’s a huge thing for me and for us, for Lamborghini to be on that stage. So we are really happy and pleased about it.

“On the other hand, the preparation time we’ve had has been relatively short. So there is still a lot of work ahead of us.

“We need to stay realistic with [our] feet on the ground. I think we’ve worked well in this development phase, but there’s still a lot of work ahead of us. And so we need to keep that in mind as well.”

The Italian driver expressed confidence in Lamborghini’s capacity to be competitive throughout the course of the year, but stressed that the team needs to be “realistic” in light of the brand’s intense but compressed development schedule.

Lamborghini only officially revealed and began on-track testing with the SC63 last summer and suffered a setback when one of its test cars was written off in an accident in August, although the car then impressed when it topped the charts during the first day of running of the IMSA-sanctioned test at Daytona in December.

“You always have to have a goal in front of you in order to perform at 100 percent,” Bortolotti said.

“So we will approach every race in a way that internally we do the best we can and try to go for the maximum. But on the other hand, we have to be realistic.

“We know where we’re coming from. As I said before, the preparation time has been really short. The job that others have done in one or two seasons of preparation, we had to do in a couple of months.

“So that’s obviously the situation we are in, but on the other hand, it’s great to be on the grid.

“On the other side, we need to give ourselves a little bit of time in order to be competitive the way we want to. But I’m confident that we can be still competitive at some stage during the season.”

Bortolotti refused to make any predictions on where the SC63 would likely slot into the running order, believing that is “absolutely impossible” to anticipate and preferred to focus on Lamborghini’s own objectives.

“I think we need to focus on our homework and trying to put our potential that we have in that moment, together,” he said.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s team related, strategy related or driver related. And then we will see where we are.

‘I think for sure one of the first targets would definitely be trying to finish the race. That’s definitely the minimum target, I would say.

“For me personally, obviously, the goal and the aim is always to be competitive. So we will try to push hard and see where we are.”