How Fast Does the New Aventador Track-Only Car Have to Go to Be The Fastest Lamborghini Ever?

Lamborghini Squadra Corse Teaser

How fast are Lamborghini’s street cars?

Well, they’re very fast, but in order not to fall into shallowness with that statement, let’s look at some numbers.

Take the Lamborghini Countach, for example, one of the most desirable supercars of the ’70s. Back then, the wedge-shaped Countach could hit 300 kilometers per hour (186 miles per hour) thanks to a 4.0-liter V-12 that cranked out 375 horsepower.

Next up, the Lamborghini Diablo. The game halo car in Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit was one of the heavy hitters roaming the streets in the 1990s and early 2000s. The Diablo SV, the supercar’s meanest personality, relied on a 5.7-liter naturally-aspirated V-12 and could hit a top speed of 325 kilometers per hour (201.9 miles per hour), a considerable increase from where the Countach had left off. The Lamborghini Gallardo was capable of reaching the same 201.9 miles per hour, but then came the Murcielago, which thanks to Sant’Agata Bolognese’s first take on active aerodynamics, could shift its drag coefficient between 0.33 and 0.36 depending on the aperture of the rear-side air intakes and the position of the rear spoiler. The 6.2-liter V-12 made 575 horsepower inside U.S.-spec Murcielagos and combined with the aero setup, allowed for a top speed of over 330 kilometers per hour (205 miles per hour).

We must also mention the Lamborghini Huracan here, not necessarily for its top speed - the successor of the Gallardo, even in this meanest Performante flavor, can reach a terminal velocity of over 325 kilometers per hour (201.9 miles per hour), which places it on par with the 20 years older 1995 Diablo SV. That’s how hardcore the Diablo was in its days.

However, the Huracan Performante brings the second face of performance into discussion - acceleration and deceleration. It can reach 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) in 2.9 seconds, while braking to a full stop from that speed requires just 31.9 meters (104.6 feet). Why are mentioning that? Because the car Lamborghini Squadra Corse has been teasing lately is a track-oriented model.

In the Huracan Performante, the downforce bit was taken care of by the Aerodinamica Lamborghini Attiva (ALA), or in English, Lamborghini active aerodynamics. The setup allows the driver to fine-tune the car’s air-cutting ability - keep in mind, the Performante is also road legal, so one might want to get the highest top speed possible for an Autobahn run, for example.

A similar ALA setup, albeit in an imbued 2.0 iteration, is motivating the Lamborghini Aventador SVJ, which can sprint from 0 to 100 kilometers per hour (62 miles per hour) in 2.8 seconds and reach a top speed of over 350 kilometers per hour (217.4 miles per hour). The same acceleration time and Vmax are specified for the hybridized Lamborghini Sian, dubbed as the fastest Lamborghini ever made.

OK, but what about the Lamborghini Veneno?

The €3 millionLamborghini Veneno packed 740 horsepower (552 kilowatts) coming from the same 6.5-liter V-12 used by the Aventador. According to Lamborghini, the Veneno can reach a top speed of 355 kilometers per hour (220.5 miles per hour), which might recommend it as the fastest Lamborghini ever produced. However, Lamborghini clearly states that the Sian is the fastest Lamborghini ever, capable of "reaching a top speed of over 350 km/h". Adding up these two statements that, by the way, are coming from Lamborghini itself, we can take away that the Sian is, in fact, the Lamborghini to beat when it comes to top speed as it’s capable of going over the Veneno’s top speed.

To answer the initial question in the headline, the threshold to beat would be a top speed of 355-360 kilometers per hour (or roughly 220.5-223.6 miles per hour)

How fast are Lamborghini’s race cars?

Lamborghini is currently racing two cars, both based on the Huracan: there’s the Huracan GT3 Evo and the rear-wheel-drive Huracan LP 620-2 Super Trofeo. They’re both heavily-tuned, stripped off, fully-blown race cars that place a lot of emphasis on their lightweight build and advanced aerodynamics.

For example, the Super Trofeo tips the scales at just 1,270 kilograms (2,799.8 pounds), but both cars are fitted with extremely aggressive aero-boosting bits and bobs from the nose to tail.

Lamborghini doesn’t specify any sort of info on top speed or acceleration time for these race cars

That’s due to the fact that Squadra Corse engineers can dial those parameters up or down according to the factors we mentioned earlier: track layout, weather conditions, temperature, and, of course, race strategy.

In theory, any of the two could reach a top speed higher than a street-legal Huracan, be it the Performante for that matter, since they both hold the weight and aero advantage over the street-legal model, provided they’re given enough space to fully make those attributes count.

Elsewhere, we expect Lamborghini to use part of the know-how it acquired during the development of its one-off Lamborghini SC18 Alston, which was in fact the first such project to come out of the supercar maker’s motorsport division.

Keep in mind that the SC18 Alston is road approved although primarily, it has been designed as a track tool.

For the time being, we can’t tell whether Lambo’s upcoming car will get a dual personality, but there’s a high chance it won’t, if we are to consider Lamborghini’s “purest track experience” claim.