Cairoli Hopeful for Future Mercedes-AMG Factory Role

Matteo Cairoli has expressed hope that his new affiliation with Mercedes-AMG will lead to an eventual inclusion in the brand’s roster of factory drivers, with both the Italian as well as manufacturer management indicating that such a scenario is under consideration.

Cairoli, who departed Lamborghini at the end of last year, is two races into a new relationship with Mercedes-AMG, having claimed his first pole position for the brand at last weekend’s GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup opener at Paul Ricard.

He then went on to finish fourth in the six-hour race, driving a Winward Racing-entered Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo alongside Lucas Auer and Maro Engel.

That forms part of a dual program for Cairoli, who will return to Iron Lynx’s LMGT3 lineup at this weekend’s 6 Hours of Imola, sharing the No. 60 car with Claudio Schiavoni and Matteo Cressoni.

Despite racing with Mercedes-AMG in two high-level championships, Cairoli does currently not hold factory driver status, as confirmed by the reveal of the brand’s full roster of factory pilots last month.

However, Cairoli as well as Stefan Wendl, the brand’s head of customer racing, both indicated to Sportscar365 that the Italian could become a factory driver if the relationship between the two parties keeps growing in a positive direction.

Wendl, for his part, described the possibility to have Cairoli involved in the brand’s customer racing activities as a “very late option” that became apparent close to the start of the season.

“As usual, so if there are options feasible for us to discuss with the teams, we do it,” Wendl told Sportscar365.

“And so it was an easy discussion. Both team chefs, so Andrea Piccini from Iron Lynx, but also Christian Hohenadel [Winward team principal], they both thought it’s beneficial to give him more seat time to make him more competitive in both series.

“And on the other hand, we’ve seen [from] racing against Matteo for several years that he’s competitive. So we decided, together, that we go this way for this season.

“We are quite close to Matteo and he impressed us also during the first tests we [did].

“We will look at it. It came very late to us, so it was too late to make it more official, but we will see how we will end up over the season and for next season.”

Cairoli revealed that the opportunity to become the third driver aboard Winward’s No. 48 Mercedes-AMG in GTWC Europe came about through Iron Lynx boss Piccini.

Notably, Piccini and Winward team principal Hohenadel have a history as teammates when both were still actively racing, winning a round of the FIA GT1 Championship in a Hexis AMR Aston Martin DBR9 in 2011.

“To be honest, I had the opportunity after Lamborghini to join Iron Lynx and drive a new car,” Cairoli said.

“So this was the beginning of the story. And then I got a call from Andrea Piccini saying that there was a potential chance to drive also with Winward in GT World Challenge and I didn’t think twice to take the opportunity.

“I want to try to be again with the manufacturer because luckily I’ve always been under contract with a brand. So this year is my real first year as a freelancer.

“It feels okay because in the end we went through some discussions already with Mercedes and I know that the opportunity might arrive at the end of the year to become a full factory [driver] but I just need to first of all show myself.

“This is the first [target] and then show the other teams and Mercedes that I deserve it.”

Cairoli stated that, despite having had preliminary discussions with Mercedes-AMG, he’s keen to keep a race-by-race mindset for the time being after a challenging off-season that saw him part ways with Lamborghini after just a year on the Italian brand’s books.

“Unfortunately, things didn’t go as planned and I was a bit worried the first few days,” he said.

“I asked, ‘what am I going to do now? Will I have a seat for the season?’ I actually didn’t know what was going to happen in my career for this season.

“So it’s good that I’ve got enough support from Iron Lynx and also from Winward of course to create a very busy 2025 season.

“With Stefan I went through some discussions for next year. As I said, at the moment I’m alone, I’m free, I’m private, you can describe me however you want to describe me.

“But for sure I’m just focusing myself on doing the best race weekend by race weekend, so then at the end of the year we will see.”