QUEEN: Two Continents, Two Championships
Photo: Lamborghini
By Colin Queen
Back in March, I wrote that if last season was about opening a door, this year was about walking through it.
Past the midpoint now, that door has led somewhere I didn’t fully expect: I’m competing in two championships, in two very different cars, on two continents.
Sebring started Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America the hard way. A Race 1 DNF put us behind before the first weekend was over.
We responded the next day, with Tommi Gore and I bringing the No. 4 ANSA Huracán home P3 in Race 2.
What I wasn’t talking about publicly back in March was a second program.
This year I’ve moved into LMP3 with 23Events Racing, the AF Corse-run team, in the Michelin Le Mans Cup, sharing the No. 50 Ligier JS P325 Toyota with Giovanni Maschio, my first season in prototypes.
Barcelona was our first race together and we finished on the podium.
Photo: Supplied
Paul Ricard turned that momentum into a win, a proper closing-stint fight for our first victory together.
Then came Le Mans, the hardest result to take all year, contact after a restart ending our race when we had a shot at a strong championship position. That’s racing sometimes, and the focus had to move to Spa.
Spa was one of the more instructive races of the season. We qualified 15th in the wet, and Gio’s excellent opening stint worked the car up to sixth before the driver change. A
Full Course Yellow and our pit sequence dropped us to 35th by the time I started my stint. With few green-flag laps left, I worked back through the field to bring the car home ninth.
Two points wasn’t what we came for, but 35th to ninth said something: we never give up and we keep pushing.
Running the LMP3 program also meant one of the more difficult decisions of my season.
The Le Mans Cup calendar conflicted with the Super Trofeo weekend at Laguna Seca, and missing a round wasn’t something I took lightly.
But LMP3 is pointed at what’s next for me: a full-time seat in professional GT3 or prototype racing, whether that’s GT3 with the Lamborghini family or prototypes down the road.
After talking it through with ANSA, we agreed it made sense to prioritize that weekend, which turned out to be Paul Ricard. I’ll always be proud of what Gio and I did with it.
Nico Jamin stepped into the No. 4 at Laguna and helped ANSA and Tommi bring home podium finishes while I was away.
The bigger lesson this year has been how quickly you have to reset when moving between two completely different types of racing.
Super Trofeo is compressed, 50 minutes, small margins, everything fast. LMP3 asks you to think in stints and longer strategy windows, manage GT traffic and the tires over hours instead of minutes, and speak a different engineering language.
Photo: Jamey Price/Lamborghini
Managing the Duality
What’s surprised me is that the actual driving part of the switch isn’t the hard part.
Once I’m strapped in, its just a mental flip of the switch. The Huracán is scruff of the neck, quick hands, total commitment, and it rewards you instantly for every bit of confidence you put in.
The Ligier earns that same commitment differently, polished aggression, all the way to the limit, built through patience and precision instead of force.
Both are about being as aggressive as the car will let you be, just in different languages. It’s outside of the driving that takes real adjustment, travel, time change, venue etc.
More than the finish, it was good to see a result finally line up with the pace that had been there.
Photo: Jamey Price/Lamborghini
That’s probably the biggest thing I’ve learned at this point in the season: development isn’t linear.
Some weekends everything comes together. Some weekends you’re fast enough and don’t get the result. Some weekends you spend most of your time figuring out why the car is not where you expect to be. All of them count.
At the beginning of the year, I wrote that careers aren’t built in one weekend. I believe that even more now.
Every stint in the Huracán and every stint in the Ligier is giving me something I didn’t have before. The results matter, but so does becoming a driver who can step into different cars and contribute quickly.
There’s still plenty of racing left. Indianapolis and the World Final at Monza remain on the Super Trofeo schedule. In Le Mans Cup, Silverstone and Portimão will decide the championship, and Gio and I are still in the fight.
I’m grateful to ANSA Motorsports and Lamborghini Squadra Corse, who have backed me at the front of Super Trofeo and supported this LMP3 opportunity without hesitation, and to 23Events Racing and AF Corse for trusting me with a bigger role in prototypes.
Gio’s been a great teammate this first season in prototypes, and none of this happens without the partners and family who make racing on two continents possible.
Back in March, I said this year was about walking through the door. Halfway through it, I’m realizing that was only part of the job. Now I have to prove I belong on the other side.
Source: Sports Car 365