Lamborghini wants to present the GT3 successor to the Huracan this year: What hurdles are there in the development and which F1 team is significantly involved?
How is the development of the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 going? The successor to the successful Huracan GT3, in which Mirko Bortolotti became DTM champion in 2024, is scheduled to make its debut this year. “What I’ve seen looks really great,” says an insider about the as-yet-unreleased Temerario GT3 look. “It’s absolutely what you’d expect of a modern GT3 car.”
According to the original timeline, Lamborghini Squadra Corse’s prototype should have made its first appearance as early as November 2024, but that has not happened to date.
Last November, Chief Technical Officer Rouven Mohr announced a premiere “most likely in the March area”. It is unclear whether this will actually happen, because now, of all times, Leonardo Galante, the long-time head of technology at Lamborghini’s racing department in Sant’Agata Bolognese, has left.
Head of technology leaves Lamborghini unexpectedly
The Italian is considered the brains behind the GT3 car and from 2008 he was the technical right-hand man of motorsport director Giorgio Sanna, who is also no longer on board.
Galante announced on Wednesday this week that he has been working for the Italian race car manufacturer Tatuus since the beginning of February.
Lamborghini’s racing department has only around 30 people, which does not make the task of getting the Temerario ready to race any easier. That’s because its predecessor, the Huracan, was still being built with the help of Audi: in 2014, Lamborghini took advantage of the slipstream of the Ingolstadt-based company, which did the main work because their R8 LMS GT3 has the same base.
For the Temerario, Lamborghini’s small motorsport team, which has been led by former BMW LMDh director Maurizio Leschiutta since December 2024 and is also struggling with the crisis-ridden LMDh project, is on its own – and dependent on service providers.
But that’s not the only Audi connection: while the Temerario’s bodyshell is being built in Neckarsulm at Audi, the chassis of the GT3 offshoot is also to be created in the Böllinger Höfe. So right where the last Audi R8 rolled off the production line in March 2024.
What role Audi plays in the new Temerario GT3
While Audi was still involved in the development of the chassis for the Huracan GT3, it now only acts as a service provider for Lamborghini.
The Italians no longer rely on an Audi engine either, but on their own powerplant: the spectacular-sounding V10 naturally aspirated engine in the Huracan is replaced in the Temerario by a contemporary V8 turbo engine with 4 liters of displacement and twin-turbocharging.
However, it is throttled because the 800 hp of power from the series are not needed. In addition, the hybridized part of the drive train is not installed in the GT3.
Temerario aerodynamics are created by the Formula 1 team
Who is Lamborghini relying on? The Italians have commissioned none other than the Formula 1 team Sauber, which is now owned by Audi and has one of the best wind tunnels in Europe, to develop the aerodynamics.
This is not unusual, as Lamborghini is 100% owned by Audi and the Ingolstadt-based company has already used the Sauber facility for the aerodynamic development of its successful LMP1 and DTM vehicles in the past.
