Lamborghini is set for a complete withdrawal from the FIA World Endurance Championship after just one year in Hypercar and LMGT3, reports say.
The Italian high performance automotive manufacturer is set to depart from the WEC, according to a report by Dailysportscar.
During their first year of the LMDh programme, the Lamborghini Iron Lynx partnership committed to all WEC rounds.
They also committed to all IMSA SportsCar Championship Endurance Cup rounds except the 24 Hours of Daytona season-opener.
Both SC63s united at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 15-16 June along with two Lamborghini Huracan LMGT3 EVO2s in the WEC’s LMGT3 class.
However, Lamborghini is facing potential budgetary issues. With WEC requiring manufacturers to enter two Hypercars next year, Lamborghini has reportedly decided it cannot manage this.
This means they will need to choose between the two premier sportscar championships, IMSA and WEC. As IMSA allows manufacturers to enter a single car in the GTP class, it is likely Lamborghini will choose this route.
A troubled programme
Lamborghini’s Romain Grosjean suffered an accident during testing at Circuit Paul Ricard, in August 2023.
The project was set back with a chassis written-off at their second-ever test, plus the cancellation of another test at Spa-Francorchamps at the beginning of the following month.
This meant the SC63’s first race took place at the WEC Qatar 1812 km season-opener, rather than at IMSA’s Daytona crown jewel event in January.
In their first season in prototype sportscar racing, the Italian manufacturer has retired from five events across 12 races, including three consecutively, entered across IMSA and the WEC in 2024.
Le Mans marked their only WEC (two) points finish from P10 in the 23-Hypercar field.
Otherwise in the WEC, they retired at Spa, Fuji and the Bahrain season finale.
Seemingly, the hectic IMSA Battle on the Bricks at Indianapolis marked their sole showing of front-running form in wet conditions.
To finish their debut year, they finished 13 laps down from the race winner at Petit Le Mans and retired at the WEC’s 8 Hours of Bahrain.
Alpine and BMW, who debuted in the WEC this year, have both claimed a podium finish each at the 6 Hours of Fuji.
LMGT3 withdrawal also coming
Meanwhile in LMGT3, Iron Dame Sarah Bovy kept the Lamborghini name at the front of the class with two pole positions.
She was unable to better her three poles from the previous year in Porsche LMGTE machinery.
Unfortunately for her and the Iron Dames team, the Lamborghini fought competitively during the initial phase of the races before encountering reliability woes.
As a result of this, neither the Dames’ #83 Lamborghini nor the other Iron Lynx-run #60 entrant scored any podium finishes.
The Dailysportscar report says the LMGT3 programme will also be withdrawn from the WEC, with a strained relationship between Iron Lynx and Lamborghini meaning a cessation of at least the full WEC programme in both categories.
Various motives are said to be behind Lamborghini’s withdrawal such as financial issues and frustration from Iron Lynx regarding the lack of productive results across Hypercar and LMGT3.
It is unclear yet on who will run the effort for Lamborghini’s IMSA continuation, ruling out Iron Lynx which utilised Prema technical support team members.
Mo Rehman contributed to this report
Discussion about this post