Pole position and back-to-back wins for Pfaff Motorsports’ Caldarelli and Mitchell
Sant’Agata Bolognese/Alton, VA, 24 August 2026 – Lamborghini secured back-to-back IMSA WeatherTech Sports Car Championship victories in the GTD Pro category, as Pfaff Motorsports’ factory driver line-up of Sandy Mitchell and Andrea Caldarelli led from pole to flag at Virginia International Raceway.
The latest success is the second win in as many rounds for the Lamborghini Temerario GT3, having taken its breakthrough maiden triumph at Road America last time out. It is also Lamborghini’s third IMSA victory of the 2026 season, having previously won with the Huracán GT3 Evo2 at Laguna Seca in the hands of Wayne Taylor Racing’s Trent Hindman and Danny Formal.
Formal and Hindman, for their part, fought for the GTD victory throughout the two hours, 40-minute race having started fourth. The pairing at the wheel of the #45 Huracán GT3 Evo2 led for large parts of the race before a drivethrough penalty inside the final hour dropped them to fifth at the finish.
Free Practice and Qualifying
After pacing eighth quickest in opening practice following a wheel speed sensor issue, the #9 Pfaff Motorsports’ combination of Caldarelli and Mitchell bounced back with a strong showing in the second session on Saturday morning. The duo set the third-quickest time in GTD Pro, and fourth overall as Formal topped the times overall.
Caldarelli was again tasked with qualifying the Temerario GT3 and produced a superb effort in the closing minutes to take the first-ever pole position for the car, his time of 1m44.773s a tenth and a half quicker than the second-placed #4 Corvette. In GTD, Formal was left to rue a small mistake on his final lap of the session but was still contented with a solid fourth-quickest time.
Race
Caldarelli started the #9 and got a sensational getaway off the rolling start to establish a healthy, albeit short-lived, advantage over the chasing pack before the race was neutralised on the opening lap for the first and only full course caution. The Lamborghini factory driver held onto his lead either side of the first round of pit-stops, eking out a slender gap as tyre management began to play a crucial role amid elevated degradation.
Mitchell then took over for the second stint and, safe for a period when the off-sequence #77 Porsche elected to stay out longer, remained in control of the race at the wheel of the #9 Temerario GT3. With virtual energy management also in play, Mitchell maintained a solid rhythm throughout and stayed aboard at the car’s last stop at the top of the final hour.
The #9 remained in the net lead behind the soon-to-stop #77, with a reduced margin of six seconds over the second-placed #64 Ford Mustang. The gap ebbed and flowed throughout the remaining 45 minutes, eventually stabilising at around four seconds. Despite the margin reducing in the final laps, Mitchell held his nerve to complete a largely dominant victory – in which the #9 led 69 of the 84 laps – by 1.517s.
The victory marks the first time that Lamborghini has stood on the top step of the podium at VIR since 2017 and launches the Caldarelli and Mitchell unofficially up to third in the GTD Pro championship standings, with two rounds (Indianapolis and Petit Le Mans) remaining.
Lamborghini Factory Driver Sandy Mitchell: “We had a little bit of tyre degradation because we were pushing quite hard at the start of my stint so that we stayed ahead of them when we pitted, so the pace was very similar, and it was quite consistent. I was flat-out, sliding around everywhere but the car was really good. Virginia is a tough track and really punishing so you can’t make mistakes and have to stay focused all the time. The car was fantastic all weekend; leading from the front, the guys at Pfaff made all the right calls again. The progress has been massive since the start of the season; we’ve been reliable and have unlocked a lot of performance now.”
Lamborghini Factory Driver Andrea Caldarelli: “You never know with IMSA races, until the last two minutes how it is going to go, but the team managed so well in the end. It was a great drive by Sandy who brought the car home. To win back-to-back races and be in the fight for the championship is a great achievement and I don’t think we even thought it would be possible, especially so early in the car’s journey so far.
