Super Trofeo Stories: Amaury Bonduel

As Amaury Bonduel stood in front of his BDR Competition by Grupo Prom car at the end of the final Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe race of the year at Jerez de la Frontera, there was a mix of joy and relief.

After making his debut in the one-make championship two years prior, Bonduel emerged as one of the fastest drivers on the grid. The Belgian showcased his incredible one-lap pace throughout the 2024 title-winning campaign, taking 10 pole positions in the regular series from 12 races, plus a double pole in the Lamborghini World Finals.

Bonduel finished runner-up in the 2022 standings behind Loris Spinelli and Max Weering and, despite only ending up fourth in 2023, won the World Finals at Vallelunga.

Competing with the family-run outfit, with father Ghislain an ever-present figure at the helm and with support from team-mate Alfredo Hernandez Ortega, Bonduel knew that he needed to make the 2024 count. And that meant winning the title.

“I’m super happy to win the championship, it has been an incredible season with 10 poles from 12 races, five victories, amazing,” says Bonduel.

“The team did an amazing job with the car, despite a lot of bad luck this season at Imola, the puncture at Le Mans and a bad weekend in Barcelona, but we made it in the end.”

Among the Pro entries in 2024, Bonduel began the year as one of the more experienced drivers and was keen to profit from that advantage. In doing so, he picked up the most significant title in his young career, which to this day has had more ups and downs than his local track, Spa-Francorchamps.

“I started go-karting at the age of three years-old,” begins Bonduel. “My dad gave me the opportunity and I started to learn a lot about driving even then, before I started racing in the local championships.

“In my first year, I won the championship and then I moved up to the European and World championships in karting, winning more titles but I knew that I wanted to move into cars already by then.

“There was a time when I also raced at the same time as my dad, in Formula France, when I was 10 years old. I was eight seconds quicker than my dad! So not long after that my dad decided to stop racing and concentrate on me.

“And when I was 14, I won a scholarship where I got a prize of €60,000 to fund the next step in my career which was in single seaters.”

His first experience in cars came during the winter test in a GP3 car with the Trident Racing team and, after a one-off round the following season at Monza, Bonduel had hopes of climbing up the single seater ladder.

But as is the case with a lot of drivers, budget proved to be hard to come by, and the Bonduels decided to look elsewhere to continue Amaury’s journey to becoming a professional driver.

GT racing, therefore, seemed an obvious pathway.

“I had done some GT3 racing with a small team in France, but it was not a big championship,” says Bonduel. “But in 2021 we decide to race in Lamborghini Super Trofeo championship.

“Although I always raced with my dad as a team, for Super Trofeo we decided to create the BDR Competition team, and we found Grupo Prom as a big investor in the team for 2022 which really helped us.

“We learned a lot about the car and the championship in the first season, finishing second in the championship which was amazing, and then obviously winning the World Finals at the end of 2023 was incredible.”

Ahead of the 2024 season the pressure was on for Bonduel, now in his third season of Super Trofeo, to win the title. He dominated qualifying but was often out of luck in the early races: a red flag at Imola amid a torrential thunderstorm, a curtailed second race at Spa and a puncture while leading at Le Mans meant he trailed Target Racing’s Oliver Söderström and Largim Ali at mid-season.

The battle with the Scandinavian duo continued right until the end of the year and having suffered bad luck at the start of the season, Bonduel got a slice of good fortune in the final race as a tactical error from Target Racing gave him the finishing position he needed to be crowned.

Bonduel has always driven as a solo driver but admitted that this became a disadvantage at certain points during the season, particularly when fighting a two-driver pairing for the title.

“Normally I find it a good thing because you can have more seat time and develop the car to your liking, and you know the conditions, but this year it was maybe a disadvantage,” Bonduel explained.

“Because we have to be in the pits for three seconds longer and the others don’t, this means I have to be very good in the first stint or have to perform more in the second stint and work harder.

“With the level in the championship we have right now, it’s not easy to pass people on track so if you get stuck behind some cars, it can be a disadvantage to be driving solo.”

Bonduel won’t have to worry about driving solo for the 2025 season as he is set to step up to a full-time GT3 campaign in Europe. It means adapting to a new environment, new style of driving and working closely with new team-mates.