SSR Performance driver Bortolotti was unable to take the start in the second Eifel race in August after his Lamborghini Huracan GT3 stopped on track in qualifying earlier in the day. The problem occurred at the worst-possible time for the Italian, as he had underlined his title credentials just the previous day with a lights-to-flag win in mixed conditions.
Bortolotti went on to finish second in the standings, 33 points behind Porsche's title winner Thomas Preining, indicating the significance of the DNS in deciding the outcome of this year’s championship battle.
Several months on, there is still no clarity as to why Bortolotti was consigned to the garage on a day Lamborghini had a car capable of winning the race, as attested by Maximilian Paul’s shock result with the Grasser team.
"We are not commenting on this," was SSR team boss Mario Schuhbauer’s response when Autosport’s sister title Motosport-Total.com asked if the squad was now willing to provide more information about Bortolotti’s technical problem last month.
The team had also remained silent when repeated attempts were made to reach out for an answer in the immediate aftermath of the race.
Lamborghini has also refused to profile any clarity on the situation, stating “we don't release details about a single tech issue that happened months ago".
At Hockenheim, another Lamborghini spokesperson told Motorsport-Total.com that the cause of the failure was ‘throttle bodies’, the part of the air intake system that controls how much air flows into an engine’s combustion chamber.
The second Evo version of the Huracan GT3 that was introduced in 2023 has ten electronically-actuated throttle bodies with titanium valves, whereas the predecessor only had two throttle bodies, one per cylinder bank.
Source: Autosport