It was today announced that Lamborghini would be joining both the FIA World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2024.
After flirting with joining the top tier of sports car racing late last year, Scuderia Corse confirmed that they would be joining both series with a single car entry. The ability to join both series comes from an agreement at the FIA World Motor Sport Council earlier this year when the LMDh regulations come into effect (compared to the LMH regulations that came into the WEC this year). This will allow entrants of the Hypercar class to take part in both race series including prestigious races such as the 24 Hours of Le Mans and 24 Hours of Daytona.
“I am absolutely delighted that Lamborghini will be taking the next step in our motorsport journey, the step into LMDh and the top level of sports car racing.” Giorgio Sanna, Lamborghini Head of Motorsport, said. “LMDh will play a special role in Lamborghini’s Motorsports strategy, giving us the unique opportunity to expand our customer racing activities to new platforms and enforce our long-term partnership with customer teams and drivers.”
The LMDh program will not affect the current GT racing commitments of the brand and they still plan to run their customer GT3 teams and Super Trofeo. The racing team have celebrated more that 40 titles since starting competitively racing in 2015 including triple GTD class wins at the Rolex 24 at Daytona (2018-20). The achievement also marked the first time a single manufacturer had won three times in a row.
“This step up into the highest echelon of sports car racing marks an important milestone for our company,” stated Stephan Winkelmann, Lamborghini Chairman and CEO. “We will be measuring ourselves against the very best, on the most demanding proving grounds.
“On one hand, this will give our successful motorsports program even more visibility, but it will also allow us to test future technologies: our LMDh prototypes will become our most sophisticated open laboratory on four wheels.”
They will join the ranks of Ferrari and Porsche who join the LMDh discipline of cars in 2023 and Peugeot who are due to join the WEC this season.