The brand-new Lamborghini SC63 racecar made its competitive debut in the FIA World Endurance Championship Prologue this week at Lusail International Circuit as the series went underway for its traditional collective test session.
Logistical challenges meant that the testing activity had to be rescheduled, and Lamborghini Iron Lynx, as well as all the other teams of the series, had to put up a massive effort to prepare the car and put it through its paces. Testing got underway on Monday, February 26th, and Tuesday, February 27th.
The historical step for the new journey came on Monday night, when Mirko Bortolotti silently sailed away in the pit-lane as the hybrid LMDh prototype, the first in the Italian manufacturer’s prized history, took its first laps at the Qatar venue. The car ran smoothly and produced promising lap times ahead of a long and challenging race. The goal was to perform reliability checks and start preparations for the 1812-km event, simulating race conditions.
The car ran without major hiccups both on day and night conditions, with the exception of a steering wheel change needed on Monday night. Work will resume with free practice on Thursday as the team will look at maximizing performance and continuing the work done.
Mirko Bortolotti, Driver #63: “We ticked the boxes we wanted to tick for the prologue, which is a new track for us so it was important to put some laps down. The car seems to be quite reliable and didn’t have any major issues, which is a good start I would say. Obviously, we would like to have a bit more performance and fight at the front. We are not there yet but this is the first race and there’s a kind of a process going on. We need to put our heads down and keep working, that’s our main target and we will continue in Free Practice.”
Daniil Kvyat, Driver #63: “We completed a good amount of laps, and even though we are not where we want to be, there is a lot of work to do, interesting work. We keep improving, the expectations for the race are not super high in terms of the results, but we want to do as many laps as possible and learn the car as much as we can. It will be a great opportunity to make important steps forward.”
Edoardo Mortara, Driver #63: “So far it was really cool to have a first go in the FIA WEC, great to be starting the journey together and testing the car on track with the others to evaluate its competitiveness. We were all quite curious and even a bit anxious. It was cool to see that we had a trouble-free prologue, we did quite some laps. We still need to work a bit now on performance and on how the car feels, but I’m actually quite optimistic judging by the fact that it’s only the beginning for us.”