NEWS

Back in November 2024, the mood in the Pfaff Motorsports shop in Toronto was low. Very low. This is a team that had won some of the biggest races in the world, and the IMSA GTD championship not once, but twice.

But suddenly, the team’s very existence appeared in doubt. Having separated from its previous partner brand, there was an increasingly real possibility that the team that had garnered thousands of fans with its iconic Plaid livery, wouldn’t be racing at all in 2025.

So much so that team principal Steve Bortolotti had to start laying some of his staff off.

“In early November, I had told people to start looking for new work because at that time, we were only really planning to do some single-make stuff,” Bortolotti explains.

“Then, Erik [Skirmants, Lamborghini North America manager] reached out and asked if we had a programme for 2025 sorted and, if not, would we be interested in talking.

“It was a total fluke; it was a Tuesday night; I was walking my dog and so it just kind of happened.

“I informed my team, but obviously at that time it was just a pipedream that it would actually come together. I tried to hold off as long as I could with the staff and once it was all done and over the line, in early December it was full-on trying to get back some of the guys I had lost.

“Lamborghini was absolutely amazing in introducing me to people who knew the car. David [Grabengiesser] our engineer, won the championship in DTM in 2024, and there were some other people who maybe didn’t have much IMSA experience, but they knew the Huracán GT3 EVO2, which was fantastic.

“And we worked very hard between us to put a team together.”

Over the space of a couple of months, Pfaff had gone from the depths of despair to renewed hope. But there was still plenty of work to be done.

A brand-new car, new relationships and a rapidly approaching deadline to get the car shaken down and prepared for the Roar before the 24 [the official test day for the 24 Hours at Daytona, the opening round of the 2025 IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship] meant a lot of work hours in a short space of time.

“That support from Lamborghini from the get-go, basically saying: ‘hey, we know this is late, but let’s figure out where your holes are and work together’ was a very refreshing approach frankly.

“To have that sort of back-up from the factory, was refreshing. Typically, in racing, it’s: ‘you’re the customer, go figure it out yourself’ but it was late for both of us and, the craziest part was that we were able to shake down the car in January before going to the Roar.

“It was almost going a little bit too smoothly, to the point where we’re like: ‘where’s the catch?’ because we weren’t planning on doing a roll-out of the car, but things moved quite fast from getting the car.

“And the guys were pulling long shifts at the shop, we put in the hours that were needed, even if that meant staying all night, which was a big effort considering it was around Christmas time and a lot of our guys were away from their families a lot during this time.”

The shortened off-season IMSA competitors have due to the traditional season launch on the final weekend of January, presents its own challenges. In normal circumstances, a team like Pfaff Motorsports would be able to strip down and rebuild a new car multiple times before rolling off the trailer.

But time was not on their side heading into the first race of the season. The team received delivery of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 EVO2 on December 16, a mere five weeks before they were due to take part in the Roar some 2,000km away from home, at Daytona.

Having set the fastest time in the Roar, first time out, hopes were high heading into the race week. That confidence was confirmed in practice with the #9 Huracán GT3 EVO2 driven by Andrea Caldareli, Marco Mapelli, Jordan Pepper and James Hinchcliffe topping the first session and finishing second in the third.

It started fifth on the grid and, with Caldarelli at the wheel, charged into the lead of the GTD Pro class early on before an unfortunate slow pit-stop dropped it to the rear of the field. Undeterred, the #9 made strong progress and was back in the hunt for a podium finish before a multi-car incident forced it to retire as night fell.

It was a difficult start to the campaign but one which showed great promise, given the constraints during the winter.

“It’s a work in progress,” Bortolotti says. “Nothing is ever easy in racing, but Lamborghini gave us the tools to work with and the guys have so much experience, especially with a car that is a bit long in the tooth.

“We also got a lot of help from the likes of Wayne Taylor Racing and Forte, who have raced the Lamborghini for a number of years now, which was great.

“The OEM, Lamborghini in this case, has done a great job of taking the knowledge from teams and then sharing this with new partners; not a lot of OEMs do that, it’s usually a case of the teams have that knowledge, and they keep that.”

Pfaff Motorsports operates a small but experienced team of seven full-time employees at the Toronto workshop, while parachuting contractor engineers and mechanics in for race weekends to take the overall number up to 19.

Needless to say, the group has become even tighter over the past 12 months, especially as the relationship with Lamborghini will continue into the 2026 season with the arrival of the new Temerario GT3.

“It’s huge, just simply knowing that we are going racing next year already is such a relief,” reflects Bortolotti. “We can now order race suits!

“I don’t need to ask any favours this year, which I did so many times last year. I’m generally a pretty organised guy but I was waiting until the very last minute to order fire suits last year, but now we don’t have to worry about it.”

It’s the small things that seem so benign that make such a difference when considering the bigger picture. And for Pfaff Motorsports, this off-season will consist of getting up to speed with another new car, the Temerario.

But, unlike 2024, the team won’t be starting from scratch and has a positive maiden IMSA season with the brand to look back on.

Competitive at most venues, the #9 car was unlucky to only take one podium finish across the season, a third place with Caldarelli and Marco Mapelli on the streets of Detroit in the summer. A pole position at Watkins Glen and several podium-contending performances at Daytona, Laguna Seca and Indianapolis, will surely have given the team added motivation for the 2026 season.