K-PAX “Would Have Been in Top Five” Without Electrical Issue

K-PAX Racing program manager Darren Law felt that the Lamborghini team would have been a strong candidate for a top-five result at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa had a wire-related electrical problem not occurred late in the race.

The American squad lost almost 20 minutes when it brought the No. 6 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 into the garage for what it initially thought was an alternator issue.

It turned out to instead be a faulty wire in the compartment where the alternator, which maintains the charge of the car’s battery and other electrical parts, was located.

At the time of the setback, Marco Mapelli was running ninth overall but K-PAX was among the front-runners after a safety car period caused the top ten to bunch up.

“The car actually ran great, and the drivers drove well in the race,” Law told Sportsar365.

“But we had a lot of track limits infractions, with penalties because of it, that put us down early on.

“We actually fought our way back, and as the sun was coming up we were up there fighting for the potential podium, which was exciting.

“But then we had an electrical problem and we had to come into the garage. We had a wiring issue that put us down eight laps.

“Had we not had that, I honestly believe that we would have been in the top five.”

Law recalled that the K-PAX engineers spotted anomalous data on the in-garage telemetry system and called Mapelli into the pits for further inspection.

“We saw the voltage coming down and thought it was an alternator,” he said.

“We had to pit, or we were going to get stuck on track. When we came in, we pulled the floor off the car and in the alternator area was found a wire.

“It was the big main power chord up to the power supply and it was actually broken.

“It was an easy fix. Once we got the floor off the back of the car, we could see it. And we were back out in a few laps. But it just took time.”

The garage visit dropped Mapelli, Sandy Mitchell and Franck Perera out of top-five contention and the K-PAX Lamborghini ended up finishing 29th overall.

For most of the race, the Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS title-winning team was Lamborghini’s only hope for outright honors after Iron Lynx retired its factory-driven car less than eight hours in, having lost substantial ground due to an early braking issue.

K-PAX previously finished 10th on its 24 Hours of Spa debut with Bentley in 2020 and 11th on its maiden outing with Lamborghini last year.

“It’s a tough event,” Law reflected. “All 24-hour races are super tough, but just to have a wire… we thought we were done from an alternator issue, but it wasn’t anything failing.

“We resolved that issue. It’s just disappointing because we had something decent there. That was our third time here, so I guess we’ll keep trying.”