Improved Lamborghini SC63 headed for its second IMSA outing

It’s been three months since the Lamborghini SC63 made its debut in the GTP class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, which was also the last time the car was seen in IMSA competition. That may seem like a long time with nothing going on, but there’s actually been a lot happening with the car in that time. The car that rolls onto the track at Watkins Glen this weekend is a significantly improved version of the prototype.

Lamborghini Iron Lynx has been running a single car in both the IMSA Michel in Endurance Cup races and the FIA World Endurance Championship. For the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the manufacturer fielded two cars in a race for the first time. At Sebring, the car acquitted itself nicely for a debut, finishing on the lead lap — and not even the last car on that lead lap. At Le Mans, both cars finished the race, albeit a couple of laps down, in 10th and 13th.

Compared to Alpine’s new A424 LMDh car that is in its inaugural season – both of which failed to finish at Le Mans — or Peugeot’s 9X8 Hypercar that’s in it’s third year and recently significantly updated, that’s a good result.

“We know that in Sebring, even though it was our first race, in certain conditions or track temperature, we were quite competitive already — which was a bit surprising, I have to say,” said Andrea Caldarelli, who will drive the No. 63 SC63 with Matteo Cairoli in the Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen. Romain Grosjean was on board as well at Sebring and with them in the second car at Le Mans. “In other conditions, we were struggling more. And this really helped us to understand where were our weak points, so we worked especially on colder conditions to try to let the car work better on the tires. It’s not great, still, but we know it’s our weak point. So we were still working in terms of setup, but we did something in terms of software and system to help with that.”

Software is the one free area of development in the LMDh platform — all other aspects are homologated and require “joker” updates for approval. But the software is a powerful tool — all the manufacturers using the LMDh platform quickly found significant gains in pace, reliability or drivability — and sometimes all three — with software updates.

“It has been a big improvement,” Caldarelli said. “We brought some updates — unfortunately, we didn’t have any other races (in between) in IMSA but the guys have been using (the updates) in WEC. So every time we go out on track, there is something new. There are a lot of things system-wise, electronics and software, that have been implemented from Sebring that we didn’t have. In Sebring, we tried to keep it simple because it was our first event. We didn’t want to over-complicate things.”

Lamborghini committed to competing in the IMEC this season, with eyes on expanding to the full championship in 2025. Lamborghini CEO Stephen Winkelmann indicated that they’re not ready to say with certainty that Lamborghini and Iron Lynx would run the full season in 2025, especially in light of the new WEC rule that requires each manufacturer to run at least two cars. Whether it does or not, Lamborghini certainly has its eye on some areas of improvement, although Rouven Mohr, Lamborghini’s chief technical officer as well as the interim head of motorsport, isn’t yet committing to implementing joker updates for next season.