LAMBORGHINI FACTORY DRIVERS SANDY MITCHELL AND ANDREA CALDARELLI DOMINATE IN VIRGINIA TO SEAL BACK-TO-BACK IMSA WINS WITH WITH PFAFF MOTORSPORTS
Lamborghini factory driver Sandy Mitchell, team-mate Andrea Caldarelli and their Pfaff Motorsports team delivered back-to-back IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship GTD Pro wins when they dominated the weekend at Virginia International Raceway.
“The weekend just couldn’t have gone any better,” stated Mitchell, the 26-year-old from Forfar who piloted the No9 Lithia & Driveway Temerario GT3 in his double stint to the chequered flag. “Everyone in the team delivered their A-game and it’s brilliant to get back-to-back wins.”
Fellow Lamborghini factory driver Caldarelli set the tone when the Italian powered the #9 Temerario to its first-ever global GT3 pole position, topping the timing sheets with a fastest lap of 1mim 44.773secs. His time was 0.151s quicker than his nearest rival on the 17-corner 3.27-mile VIR circuit, acknowledged as being one of the toughest and most technical tracks in America.
“Andrea did a stunning job in qualifying, then made a blistering start opening up a healthy gap before the Safety Car was called after a big first lap incident,” Mitchell explained. “Thankfully the driver was ok.”
On the restart after 19-minutes behind the Safety Car, Caldarelli again quickly established a lead over the #4 Corvette maintaining the advantage of around a second before handing the car to Mitchell with 108 of the 160-minute race remaining.
“We had a seamless pitstop and great strategy from the team put me out in clean air meaning I was able to set my own pace,” Mitchell, personally backed by Tunnocks and Dama Fortuna Premium Tequila, continued.
Within eight minutes, as the first round of pitstops ended, Mitchell had established a 6.6sec lead over the second-placed #64 Ford. A series of metronomic lap times, and consistently the quickest GTD Pro car on-track in the 23-car grid, saw Mitchell stretch his advantage to 8.2secs before the final round of pitstops.
“Again the team made a terrific call and the crew delivered another quick, faultless stop which meant I stayed in the lead,” he continued. “After that it was a case of maintaining my pace and bringing the car home. Towards the end, like everyone else, I had to manage the tyre degradation because track conditions were so hot, but it was brilliant to take the chequered flag and drive the Lamborghini into Victory Lane.”
Such was the #9 Temerario’s supremacy that it led the race from lights to chequered flag, allowing for pitstop rotations.
“Everyone in the team nailed it this weekend,” stated Mitchell, who with Caldarelli has now moved into third place in the IMSA title race, just three weeks after their debut win at Road America.
“We’ve been learning a lot in the last couple of races. Obviously, we had a really good race at Road America. I think we carried that momentum into Free Practice 1 here and were on the pace straight away. That allowed us to focus on all the other things that are important like pitstops, in- and out-laps and focus on how to win a race, not just how to be fast.
“Everything went really well for us here. The track suited our strengths and to bag back-to-back victories at two of the toughest circuits on the calendar is brilliant for everyone in the team. It’s all the more impressive given the Temerario is a completely new car for 2026. The work Lamborghini and the team has done behind the scenes is immeasurable and it feels good to know we are in a fight for the championship.”
Mitchell returns to action for the penultimate round of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on September 19/20.
