The 2025 CrowdStrike 24h of Spa ended with a landmark triumph for Lamborghini and Jordan Pepper. After 549 laps of drama and attrition, Grasser Racing Team guided the #63 Lamborghini to the brand’s first overall victory at the Ardennes classic. Pepper, Mirko Bortolotti, and Luca Engstler shared the car and crossed the line just eight seconds clear of their closest rivals.
For Pepper, the CrowdStrike 24h of Spa became a defining moment of his GT3 career. He delivered calm, consistent stints that kept the Lamborghini in contention through the night and into the decisive final hours. His pace matched Ferrari and Porsche’s factory stars, and his composure under pressure helped Grasser seize control.
In an exclusive interview with Pit Debrief, Pepper looked back on when belief in victory began to grow and how the team’s execution turned that belief into history.
Treating the CrowdStrike 24h of Spa like a workday, not a moment – Pepper stayed patient, tidy and unsentimental
Pepper kept his outlook cool at the CrowdStrike 24h of Spa, treating the race as a full day’s work rather than a single decisive moment. As the car moved to the front and rotated through the lead pack, logging hour after hour in clean air, he felt a winning package beneath him. He still respected the chaos that a 24-hour race always carried, knowing mechanical gremlins could appear unexpected. Remembering all too well the year he lost the CrowdStrike 24h of Spa inside the final two hours, a scar that tempered Pepper’s every call and kept the cockpit calm through safety cars and shuffled decks.
As night settled and the stints flowed, tyres stayed in the window and the crew hit every mark. Belief grew not in a single surge but lap by lap, until dawn thinned the field and the gaps began to tilt their way, turning quiet confidence into conviction and narrowing the job to its essence: keep it tidy, cover the moves, and close.
“Honestly, from my side, I’ve been like Mirko [Bortolotti] in the mix a few times and I realised quite quickly that the 24-hour race is 24 hours long. So for sure there were moments in the race once we moved to the front, and we were cycling through always in the lead pack, let’s say, and we led the race for quite a few hours.”
“I knew we had the package for sure to continue to go, but there are so many different elements that can happen, so many freak mechanical things that can pop up. So I’ve lost that race before under two hours to go and that was a race where I also thought once I had a chance.”
After the final stop, clean air and a nailed out-lap narrowed it to one task: bring it home
Pepper said conviction settled in only after the final stop during the CrowdStrike 24h of Spa, when the strategy landed and the car slotted back to the front with clean air and clear targets. With cautions behind them and the variables stripped away, the equation narrowed to one task. Bortolotti’s closing run to the flag. The garage stilled as the clock wound down, every split parsed, every sector a small test of nerve. Traffic behaved, tyres held their edge, and fuel matched the sheets, yet the tension never really eased.
Each lap added a layer of calm without inviting complacency. The pit wall managed gaps, covered counters, and kept the driver’s world simple. Confidence built methodically—never rushed, never loud—until the final tour offered the first true release. Only then did belief turn into certainty. The last corners falling their way and the finish line delivering what the plan, the pace, and the poise had promised.
“So it’s very easy to say at a certain moment, but I definitely believed once we cycled into the lead at the end after the last pit stop, we obviously got back to the lead. We came out and there were no external factors any more.”
“It was just down to Mirko [Bortolotti] to complete the last stint and full trust in him that he was going to bring it home. So, yes, very tricky, very tense last few moments, but it was really right until the end, until the last lap where it really felt like, OK, now we get it done.”
