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Andrea Caldarelli admitted they didn’t consider championship prospects at the beginning of the year but said Pfaff Motorsports always had the “spirit” to get the most out of the new Lamborghini Temerario GT3 package. Caldarelli and co-driver Sandy Mitchell have vaulted into GTD Pro title contention following their second consecutive IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship victory in Sunday’s Michelin GT Challenge at Virginia International Raceway. The Lamborghini factory driver pairing moved from seventh to third in the drivers’ standings following their points haul in a race that saw class championship leaders Connor De Phillippi and Neil Verhagen finish fifth. Caldarelli and Mitchell now sit only 56 points from the lead with two races to go, a position the Italian driver admitted was not on table when they gave the car its global debut in the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March. “We obviously didn’t look at the championship at the beginning in Sebring, but I always said our job is to go out and try to win every race,” he said. “I think that’s what we really did in the last few months and we take it weekend by weekend. We know it’s a new car. “It feels good to know that we’re in the fight for the championship, but at the same time, I think our main focus is still to learn more and more about the car and going to different spec of tracks with different tarmacs and so on. “I think it’s the [same] spirit we’re going to go to Indianapolis [with].” While no strangers to championship titles, the Canadian squad, which announced that it will not return to the WeatherTech Championship next year, could now be primed to go out on top, if the success keeps turning their way. “Pfaff is a team that they go out to win,” said Caldarelli. “Obviously we know the mountain that we had to overcome with a new car but I have to say the spirit of the team has been always hopeful and very positive about every weekend. “I’m not saying that we were looking at the championship [when the car debuted] but I think we stayed positive that in IMSA, if you always execute a good weekend, you never say never. “I always said that people underestimate the fact that it’s a brand new car and it does not have any reliability problems. “It’s a massive thing. Obviously without reliability, you cannot win championships.” Mitchell: Road America Momentum Carried into VIR While having given the car its first win in global competition last time out at Road America, Mitchell said that momentum carried over into this weekend, which saw Caldarelli claim the first-ever pole for the Temerario GT3 in qualifying. “The track seems to suit the strengths of our car,” said Mitchell. “It was a little bit like Laguna Seca as well; we were quite competitive there in the race but ran into a couple of issues. “I think the style of the track and the strength of our car was really good. “Just from the start of the weekend, we had a good car. We’ve been learning a lot in the last couple of races. “Obviously we had a really good race at Road America and I think we carried that momentum into FP1 here and were kind of on the pace straight away, which was really nice. “That allowed us to focus on all the other things that are important like pit stops and in and out laps and focus on how to win a race, not just how to be fast, which has often been our main target for all the practice sessions earlier in the year with learning so much about the new car and developing that. “I felt like it was a little bit more of a rounded weekend and we could prepare really well.”