MONTEREY, Calif. — The Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America season got off to a wild start Saturday at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
But in the end, it was a familiar team and drivers who capped off the race with the victory.
Danny Formal and Kyle Marcelli, the defending Pro class champions, wheeled their No. 1 Wayne Taylor Racing with Andretti Autosport, Lamborghini Palm Beach Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo Evo2 to the overall and Pro win after surviving an incident-filled, last-lap restart.
Formal started second overall in the 32-car field but grabbed the lead heading into the Turn 2 Andretti Hairpin, overtaking pole sitter and ProAm driver John “JCD” Dubets in the No. 46 Precision Performance Motorsports, Lamborghini Palm Beach Huracán. The only time the No. 1 relinquished first place after that was during the sequence of mandatory pit stops.
“We had a great jump off the line,” Formal said. “I got next to JCD, he was cautious on the braking with cold tires and I said I have to commit. I sent it really deep on the brakes and he respected me, and I was able to pass him.”
Marcelli built a comfortable lead gap in the closing stint until the late caution bunched the field, forcing a one-lap dash to the checkered flag that included several on-track skirmishes and collisions. Marcelli held off WTRAndretti teammate Ryan Norman, who was making his series debut, by 0.868 seconds.
Nico Jamin and Sebastian Saavedra, also in their maiden Super Trofeo race, finished third.
“WTRAndretti gave us a great car,” Marcelli said. “Three years in a row we’ve had a really strong car here, so we’re not really searching and looking for something new. I had a little bit of a buffer on that last restart with a LB Cup car between me and second. It was just a matter of getting through Turn 1 … execute one lap clean and bring it home.”
The ProAm class featured quite the battle to the end.
Four cars were nose to tail on the final restart, with Johannes van Overbeek last among them. The IMSA veteran managed to muscle his way past those ahead, however, to deliver the class win for himself and co-driver Chris Bellomo.
“Not bad for a retired guy,” van Overbeek said. “Chris talked about this program a few months ago and reunited with Flying Lizard; it felt natural. Chris put us in a good position, and it was just chaotic at the end. I just saw nothing but Lamborghinis in front of me and behind me, and I kept looking for holes and moving the car forward. Luckily it worked out for us.”
“It’s definitely a confidence builder,” co-driver Bellomo added. “Hopefully, we can just keep getting better and better, and the car’s going to keep getting better.”
The Am class welcomed a longtime Lamborghini favorite to the list of Super Trofeo race winners in Ron Atapattu.
A loyal Lambo driver since the late 1990s and third-place finisher in the Super Trofeo North America ProAm class in 2019, Atapattu is returning full time for the first time since then. He and Kevin Madsen rallied from the last starting position on the 32-car grid to win the Am race in the No. 24 Ansa Motorsports, Lamborghini Broward Huracán.
“It’s fantastic,” an elated Atapattu said. “Never expected this to win the first race. We started in the back so we had a lot of tense moments just trying to catch up. All credit to Kevin. He’s the guy who took the car to the front. He did a fantastic job. In a hot, sunny Laguna day, that was a very good run.”
Amid the confusion of the last lap, Madsen somehow raced from fifth in class to first, winning by 0.744 seconds.
“From last to first — only with Ron,” Madsen said. “He gave me a great car. We had some issues during the stint but we made the best of it. Ron saved the car (in the first stint) so I was able to get out there and attack. I don’t know how many guys I passed but it was nuts. I held back and attacked when it was right when the openings came, and we got lucky.”
LB Cup class driver Mark Wilgus also drove to his first series win. Starting from the class pole, Wilgus led throughout other than during pit stops, dodged the late chaos and took the checkered flag 0.932 seconds ahead of Fred Roberts.
“I’ve never been in a race like that before, it was something else,” Wilgus said. “At the end it just got a little crazy, some action on track and we had that yellow. On the restart, I’ve never seen that much action in a lap before. I just kept my head up going through there.”