FFF Confirms Factory-Backed Lamborghini Program

FFF Racing Team has finalized plans for an extensive three-car program in the Blancpain GT Series this year with support from Lamborghini Squadra Corse.

As initially reported by Sportscar365, FFF, which is led by Lamborghini factory driver Andrea Caldarelli, has been closing in on a European GT3 return for some time after success in Blancpain GT World Challenge Asia.

The team’s plans are now confirmed, with three cars set for both the Blancpain GT Endurance Cup and renamed Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe.

“For sure what I can tell you is that we are going to do two programs in Europe, which is going to be fully supported from the factory,” Caldarelli told Sportscar365.

“In Asia we are just going to keep the Super Trofeo so we are not going to any more Blancpain GT Asia.”

FFF will formally reveal its plans, including driver lineups, in a launch event on March 8 at the Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese.

It initially had plans to enter the Intercontinental GT Challenge but Caldarelli said he “gave up on that idea” because the 2019-spec Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo was ineligible for last weekend’s Liqui-Moly Bathurst 12 Hour.

Nevertheless, he hasn’t ruled out a future IGTC entry, saying it is “definitely a program that we are looking for in the future.”

The addition of FFF into Lamborghini’s European GT3 scene comes with Grasser Racing Team set for a reduced entry in the Blancpain GT Series this year.

The Austrian operation has been the de-facto reference team for Lamborghini since debuting the Huracan GT3 four years ago.

Team principal Gottfried Grasser told Sportscar365 last month that he plans to run two cars in the Endurance Cup and either one or two in the Sprint rounds, along with a trio of entries in ADAC GT Masters.

“Honestly, we want to [do] a little bit of a smaller program in Blancpain, because it’s too much workload,” Grasser said.

“It’s our intention to be a little bit smaller, and this is the key at the moment.”

Grasser says Caldarelli, who has driven in his lead factory-backed car alongside Mirko Bortolotti and Christian Engelhart in recent seasons, shouldn’t underestimate the difficulty of Blancpain GT Europe, but expects him to have success.

“I think it’s a proper good idea, with data sharing, everything,” he said. “I think for Andrea it will still be a quite tough job and we know the championship really well.

“They come from Asian championships where it’s quite a different input and it will be hard to learn at the beginning but they will also have success.”

Sanna: Expansion in Lamborghini Support “Fair and Transparent” 

Head of Lamborghini Motorsport Giorgio Sanna says having FFF competing alongside Grasser allows the Italian manufacturer to diversify its lead entries rather than rely on just one partner team.

“Squadra Corse, in the last few years, is growing up,” Sanna told Sportscar365.

“Like other manufacturers, we are looking to create more than one reference team. It’s part of the learning process of Lamborghini in customer racing.

“We will [also] communicate some new customer teams also entering with us during the season and FFF and Grasser will compete sometimes in the same championship, like Blancpain, but also with different targets to achieve.

“It’s a fair and transparent competition inside our family and we’re more than happy to support both of them in the same way, as we do for the other customer teams competing in different championships.”

Daniel Lloyd and John Dagys contributed to this report.