Caldarelli: Lamborghini Showed “Something Positive” at Spa

Lamborghini driver Andrea Caldarelli says he was encouraged by the SC63’s long-run pace in the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, despite the Italian prototype failing to finish a race for the first time.

Caldarelli made his return to the FIA World Endurance Championship in Belgium as a replacement for Edoardo Mortara, who was away on Formula E duty, alongside Mirko Bortolotti and Daniil Kvyat.

The No. 63 car qualified 16th, 1.8 seconds off the pace, and was circulating in a similar position until suffering a terminal rear suspension issue in the third hour of the race.

Despite that setback, Caldarelli said he was pleased with how consistent the SC63 proved over a stint, even if a lack of one-lap performance didn’t come as a major surprise.

“The final result was not what we were looking for, but at this stage of the program, any track time is really valuable for us,” Caldarelli told Sportscar365. “I think we started the weekend quite well in terms of pace on high fuel and long runs.

“We knew we were missing a bit on a qualifying lap. We didn’t have much time from Imola to work on anything major, so we didn’t expect much difference from Imola.

“But the weekend was positive in terms of collecting data and doing some improvements from qualifying to the race. We couldn’t capitalize on that, but it was good to be on track and use it as a test.

“We shouldn’t forget also that we have never tested before at Spa, unlike most of the other teams, so it was a bit of a ‘blind’ situation.”

Spa marked the fourth race outing in total for the SC63, which made its IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March, finishing seventh on that occasion.

Looking ahead to Lamborghini’s first appearance in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Caldarelli says he is looking forward to having both the WEC and IMSA cars running side by side.

“We have to be realistic in our first year,” he said. “But I think we showed something positive at Spa and we can see the car and the team growing.

“Track time is so limited during a race weekend, so when you have multiple cars like other manufacturers, it makes life so much easier, it means you can test different things at the same time.

“The target for sure is to finish the race, and so it’s important to stay out of trouble and have reliability.”

With three rounds of the WEC completed, Lamborghini has yet to score drivers’ points, but has earned three points in the manufacturers’ standings to sit seventh ahead of Cadillac and Isotta Fraschini.

Caldarelli however says that the SC63’s performance so far has been roughly in line with his expectations, highlighting the relative lack of testing that has been completed with the new car compared to many of its rivals.

“People easily forget that it’s a car that only drove on track for the first time in August last year, and we’ve had a few bumps along the way,” said the Italian. “Time is something you cannot escape. You cannot take shortcuts.

“At least for me, so far it’s not been any different to what I expected. It’s not been easy, because we are testing things during a race weekend, but we have such a strong group of people who are really motivated.

“We are showing that we are not giving up, even if from the outside it looks dark. I’m really positive about it.”