K-PAX Full-Time European Return a “Huge Undertaking”

K-PAX Racing’s return to full-time European racing after a two-season absence has been a “huge undertaking” according to the American team’s program manager Darren Law.

The Californian squad is running a single Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 for Marco Mapelli, Sandy Mitchell and Franck Perera in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup after winning back-to-back GTWC America titles.

K-PAX last entered the Endurance Cup in 2020 when it fielded a pair of Bentley Continental GT3s.

Law explained that the team worked with Lamborghini and its partners to overcome the challenges of setting up a program on the other side of the Atlantic with a different manufacturer than before.

“It’s a lot of work being based in the U.S. and not having any facilities in Europe,” Law told Sportscar365.

“After the 2020 season, we stored the equipment in a shipping container at our shop in Sonoma. Everything was back in the U.S. with the hopes of coming back here, and it’s worked out.

“We had the majority of the equipment required, set aside. The only thing we didn’t have was a refueling rig. We loaded up the container. It’s just a huge undertaking shipping all the equipment to Europe. We have a partnership with Iron Lynx that’s been a huge help.”

K-PAX is renting space in Iron Lynx’s Italian hedquarters, giving it a base for the season.

“We’re storing everything at their shop,” said Law.

“It’s a massive amount of work. As soon as the season ended, we sent both our cars over to Lamborghini Squadra Corse and had them upgraded to the latest EVO2 spec. That was done by Lambo.

“We’ve got the assets and the equipment because of being able to rent things, but then the issue was trying to sort out our crew. Because we’re only running one car, we don’t need as many people as we had in the past.

“We basically split our crew, taking a portion of the guys who ran our U.S. program, from engineering to strategy to certain tire and fuel guys. “We’ve got to fly our portion of the crew to Europe every race and we’re about 10 guys flying over. It’s back and forth.

“We’ve actually hired several people from Europe as well, who were part of the crew who helped us in 2020.

“We’ve got a mixture of U.S and European crew members. Lamborghini is helping with engineering support, so it’s a collaboration between the groups to make this thing happen.”

K-PAX is starting its five-round Endurance Cup program at Monza this weekend as is fully focusing on GTWC Europe having recently ruled out any appearances on home soil.

Even though the team contested the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa last year, Law noted that it needs to be wary of the differences between racing in GTWC Europe and America.

“The big thing is that, even though it’s all SRO, there’s a lot of different rules, formats and things compared to how the U.S. runs,” he said.

“It’s not just cut and paste. We’ve had to go through the rulebook and understand regulations, and how things work. We’re constantly working on that.

“Lamborghini helps and we’ve got a good relationship with SRO, so they’ve been keeping us informed and very open to explaining things. Everything from pit procedures, to tech, to rules and regulations on-track… there are so many things that are different.

“You can’t just drop right in and go. It’s not the same. But luckily, we spent a full season in 2020 and we did Spa last year, so we have some experience that really helps.”

Law added the K-PAX is looking forward to testing itself in a larger Pro class with more factory driver lineups compared with GTWC America, where it dominated the last two years.

He explained that GTWC Europe suits the organization better than the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which also has an all-professional GT category.

“I think there’s a lot of different things that go into that,” said Law.

“One of the reasons why we’re sticking to this is that [owner] Jim Haughey loves to be in the top class going for the overall win. That’s what happens in SRO racing in Europe.

“IMSA is at a very high level as well, but cost is part of it. We can run a full season here at a pretty reasonable price with a single car. That factors in.

“And the tracks and the racing in Europe are amazing. It’s really good.”