Lamborghini won’t expand beyond Iron Lynx in WEC and IMSA

Giorgio Sanna, head of the Lamborghini Squadra Corse motorsport department, has stated that Iron Lynx will remain the manufacturer’s sole representative in both series over the full life-cycle of the new SC63 unveiled at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Thursday.

Sanna stopped short of describing Iron Lynx, which was announced as Lamborghini's partner for the LMDh programme for 2024 last November, as a factory squad, preferring the term “reference team”.

But adding a second such operation or making customer cars available over the course of the four-year programme up to the end 2027 is not in the plan, he explained.

“We were not looking to have more than one team for the simple reason that to approach LMDh in a customer racing way like we are doing in GT3 [with the Huracan], or like some other manufacturers like Porsche are doing, you need an organisation that today is not the one of Squadra Corse,” said Sanna.

“We have to keep in consideration the size and the capability of our structure, and at the moment we prefer to keep focused on one team whether we are managing one car, two cars, four cars, because the programme is very demanding.

“The target is to have Iron Lynx only as our reference team.”

That represents a change of stance from earlier comments by Sanna.

He had previously stated that Lamborghini would follow its business model in the GT3 arena by working with customer teams, which would receive significant factory support.

Iron Lynx will run one SC63 in the Hypercar class in a full WEC campaign and a second in GTP division in the North American Endurance Cup rounds of the IMSA series in 2024.

Lamborghini SC63 LMDh

Photo by: Lamborghini S.p.A.

Both Sanna and Iron Lynx team principal Andrea Piccini said that an expansion of their programme in year two is on the cards, but remains undecided at present.

“That is something we are already exploring,” explained Sanna.

“We have to evaluate the effort needed in terms of technical support, the cost of the project.

“When we will have a better picture, more understanding and more experience, then we will evaluate different scenarios.”

A two-car assault on the WEC looks likely for 2025, while mounting a full campaign on the IMSA series is “in the plan but not guaranteed”, according to Piccini.

He also raised the possibility of Iron Lynx running its US-based SC63 alongside its regular WEC car at the Austin round of the series next September.

A WEC car is then likely to be part of the Lamborghini assault on the Daytona 24 Hours IMSA season-opener in January 2025.

He explained that the plan is for Iron Lynx to mirror its 2024 Le Mans 24 campaign when the IMSA car will bolster its entry to two cars in the French enduro.

The race debut of the SC63 is scheduled for the opening round of the 2024 WEC in Qatar next March rather than the first of the IMSA enduros at Daytona in January.

Lamborghini SC63 LMDh

Photo by: Lamborghini S.p.A.

Sanna reiterated Lamborghini’s position that racing at Daytona next year is not scheduled at present.

But he suggested that could change based on the results of the initial testing of the car, while stressing the extent of the task Lamborghini, Iron Lynx and chassis development partner Ligier Automotive would face to bring forward the debut of the SC63.

“It is not just a matter of having the car ready to go,” he said.

“It is a matter of the team, the spare parts, the manufacturer behind [the programme] being ready to support us. There are many things to put together before we can start to race.”