DL Racing crew win both races in Germany to take Pro points lead ahead of penultimate round
Sant’Agata Bolognese/Nürburg, 30 August 2026 – DL Racing’s Simone Iaquinta and Kevin Gilardoni moved into the lead of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe Pro points standings after claiming both race wins at the Nürburgring. The crew of the #72 Lamborghini Huracán Super Trofeo Evo2 enjoyed a near-perfect weekend in Germany, and head into the penultimate round of the year at Barcelona with a three-point advantage over Oregon Team’s Silas Lovén Rytter and Patrik Fraboni.
In Pro-Am, Paul Levet and Miguel Cristóvão claimed their maiden class victory for VSR while ASR’s Marzio Moretti and Paolo Biglieri won race two. Mičánek Motorsport’s Renaud Kuppens and Jakub Knoll split the Am wins with CMR’s Stéphane Lémeret and Rodrigue Gillion while Claude-Yves Gosselin (Rexal Villorba Corse) doubled up in the Lamborghini Cup.
Race 1
Levet claimed pole for the opening 50-minute race of the weekend and duly maintained his overall and Pro-Am class lead off the rolling start. His class rivals, Miloš Pavlović (ASR) and Jonathan Cecotto (Invictus Corse) occupied the next two places overall as Pro polesitter Jerzy Spinkiewicz dropped back early on. That gave the Pro lead to Gilardoni, with Alfio Andrea Spina (Oregon Team) his nearest challenger, two places back in sixth. Another one to suffer on the opening lap was the points-leading #36 Oregon Team entry started by Patrick Fraboni, who fell to 25th after a trip through the turn eight gravel trap. Light rain then fell steadily over the course of the first stint, with some corners becoming greasy as the pit window approached. Levet held onto his overall lead by three seconds from Pavlović, with both drivers electing to stay out until the end of the 10-minute window before switching over to Cristóvão and Alessio Ruffini respectively. Iaquinta, taking over from Gilardoni, then made inroads into the overall classification. Coming out in fourth, he made quick work of the Pro-Am cars in front, eventually seizing the overall lead from Cristóvão with 13 minutes remaining. From there, Iaquinta comfortably claimed his and Gilardoni’s second victory of the year by 3.935s from Spinkiewicz, who captured his second podium of the campaign for UNIQ Racing. Rexal Villorba Corse’s Benedetto Strignano and Nicholas Pujatti completed the podium, in third, with Strignano making good progress to carve through the field in the second stint. Having taken over from Fraboni, Silas Lovén Rytter was one of the standout performers in the Pro class, putting in a superb drive to finish just off the rostrum in fourth, leaving he and Fraboni tied on points with Iaquinta-Gilardon heading into race two.
In Pro-Am, Levet and Cristóvão (VSR) picked up their first victory of the season, finishing in the top five overall. Ruffini fell back in the second stint and was eventually passed by the Mičánek Motorsport Huracán of Anthony Pretorius and the ASR machine of Marzio Moretti in the closing stages. Meanwhile, there was late drama in the AM class, as OP Motorsport’s Ole Petersen missed out on victory after receiving a 50-second penalty for a short pit-stop. That gave the win – and the points lead – to Kuppens and Knoll (Mičánek Motorsport), with Karim Ojjeh (Rexal Villorba Corse) second ahead of Stéphane Lémeret and Rodrigue Gillion (CMR). The Lamborghini Cup spoils went the way of Claude-Yves Gosselin (Rexal Villorba Corse) for his first win of the season, as five-second penalties impacted Umar Abdullah Basalamah (ASR) and Luciano and Donovan Privitelio (Rexal Villorba Corse). Class points leader Adalberto Baptista therefore took second, with Petar Matić (ASR) third.
Kevin Gilardoni (#72 DL Racing): “I spent my summer thinking about what happened at Spa, but we came here with a new mindset and continued [to do] our best. The team did a mega job and the car was perfect. Going to wet tyres would probably have been easier, because it was raining in one corner, then there was no rain for two corners and the next lap the conditions were different again. The target was to get into the lead among the Pro drivers, and we did it, taking some risks, but that’s racing. We did our maximum, so we’re happy.”
Simone Iaquinta (#72 DL Racing): “Kevin did a great job today because the most important part of the race was his stint. He started the race and took a big risk on the first lap, in that first battle, so a great job by Kevin today. I’m very happy to share the car with him. When I started my stint, I just had to manage the situation because I knew the advantage we had. For me, it was a little bit easier thanks to the job Kevin had done.”
Race 2
On pole for race two, Moretti led the way at the start on Sunday from Iaquinta and the fast-starting Pretorius and Rytter. Behind, Strignano was collected by his Rexal Villorba Corse team-mate Giraud, with Euan Hankey (VSR) also caught up in the incident at turn one. The Lamborghini Cup entrant of Peder Demant Møller (DC Motorsport) was another to spin at the first corner. Out front, Moretti built a healthy two-second margin over Iaquinta, with the gap coming down approaching the pit window. When the pair came in at the end of the window to hand over to Biglieri and Gilardoni respectively, the two cars were nose-to-tail. Gilardoni made light work of Biglieri after the stops, with the latter holding onto the Pro-Am lead until the end. Having struggled to match the leading pace of Moretti and Iaquinta, Rytter ran second in Pro and third overall before swapping with team-mate Fraboni, who took up the fight admirably in the second stint, which was punctuated by a safety car intervention after Petar Matić (ASR) spun into the turn eight gravel trap with just over 10 minutes remaining. When the race restarted, Fraboni kept pace with Gilardoni but couldn’t get close enough to mount a serious challenge and had to settle for second place and the loss of the championship lead heading into Barcelona. Månz Thalin and Axel Bengtsson (Leipert Motorsport) bounced back from a challenging Saturday to take the final podium position. Bengtsson ran fourth in the opening stint after getting ahead of the Pro-Am entry of Pretorius and stayed out longer than Spinkiewicz during the pit window. The overcut strategy paid off as Thalin rejoined ahead, before pulling away in the final minutes. Spinkiewicz had initially fallen to fifth behind Matias Salonen (Leipert Motorsport) but regained fourth on countback after the race was red flagged with a lap to go. Hankey and team-mate Finley Green finished sixth, ahead of debutants Barrett Wolfe and João Diaz Balesteiro. Pretorius and Bronislav Formánek took second place in Pro-Am behind Moretti and Biglieri, with Knopp and Perolini coming home third.
In AM, the battle went right down to the wire, with Rexal Villorba Corse’s Ojjeh gaining two positions in three corners following the safety car restart. Kuppens led the class early on ahead of compatriot Lémeret, with the latter staying out longer during the pit-stop phase before handing over to Gillion. The order remained the same until the safety car came out, with Ojjeh making his move in the final minute. Due to the red flag, the order was reversed after the flag, with Lémeret and Gillion taking their second win of the season. It was a similar story in LB Cup, as DC Motorsport’s Nina Østergaard made a last lap overtake on eventual winner Gosselin before being moved back to second. Østergaard had earlier overcome massive pressure from Holger Harmsen and Matić in an entertaining battle. After Matić’s retirement, Harmsen ended up on the podium in third on home soil.
Kevin Gilardoni (#72 DL Racing): “It’s always a pleasure to share the car with Simone. The team did a mega job and gave us a fantastic car. Honestly, the wins were not as easy as they might have looked. We built a seven-second gap, then the Safety Car came out and wiped it all out, and after that we had to build the gap again. But that’s motorsport, and that’s what we’re here for. It is almost the perfect weekend, and I think we should be very satisfied. I want to thank everyone who makes it possible for me to be here.”
Simone Iaquinta (#72 DL Racing): “It was a beautiful and almost perfect weekend. The only thing we missed was pole position, but we won both Race 1 and 2. Kevin did a great job and I’m very happy to share the car with him. A big thanks also to the team, because the car was perfect all weekend. Now we have to stay focused for the rest of the championship. The next round is Barcelona, so we’ll keep pushing.”
Attention now turns to the penultimate round of the season at Barcelona, which will take place on the weekend of October 2-4, with the final round held three weeks later at Monza on the weekend of the Lamborghini World Finals.
2026 Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe calendar
Round 1 – Paul Ricard (April 10-12)
Round 2 – Imola (May 9-10)
Round 3 – Spa-Francorchamps (June 25-27)
Round 4 – Nürburgring (August 28-30)
Round 5 – Barcelona (October 2-4)
Round 6 – Monza (October 21-23)
Lamborghini World Finals – Monza (October 24-25)
