The LC2s earned three race victories over their lifetimes in the hands of Italian drivers Teo Fabi, Riccardo Patrese, Alessandro Nannini, and Mauro Baldi, as well as German Hans Heyer and Frenchman Bob Wollek.
More powerful than their primary competition, the Porsche 956s, the LC2s were able to secure multiple pole positions during their three and a half seasons with the factory Martini Racing squad. However, deficiencies in reliability and fuel consumption hampered the LC2s' efforts for race wins against the Porsches.
In 1982, the new Group C regulations were introduced to the World Championship, requiring teams to use coupé-style cars that had to meet a fuel economy standard of 100 kilometres for every 60 litres of fuel. The Lancia LC1, built to the older Group 6 regulations, initially competed in 1982 but had to be replaced for Lancia to earn constructors' points in the World Championship, now open to Group C cars only in 1983.
Lancia lacked a production engine large enough to base a racing engine on, leading the company to seek outside sources. Since Lancia were owned by the Fiat Group, they were able to seek assistance from fellow Fiat company Ferrari. Ferrari allowed Lancia to adapt the new naturally aspirated 3.0 litres four valve V8 introduced in the Ferrari 308 GTBi QV in 1982. The development of the engine was assigned by Enzo Ferrari to Nicola Materazzi, then Chief Engineer in the Racing Department (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_LC2).
The basic engine architecture was heavily redesigned for racing purposes and the engine was reduced in capacity to 2.6 litres, with two KKK turbochargers added to help achieve the necessary fuel economy and power. The engine was initially connected to a Hewland five-speed manual gearbox, which was replaced by an Abarth-cased unit in 1984 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_268/282C/308C_engine).
Design work on the chassis was split between Italian specialist racing car manufacturers Abarth and Dallara, the latter of which built the aluminium monocoque and the kevlar and carbon fibre bodywork. The LC2 featured a large intake for the radiators in the center of the nose of the car, unlike the contemporary Porsche 956s which drew air from behind and to the sides of the cockpit.
The LC2s debuted at the beginning of the 1983 season, run under the Martini Racing name and painted in Martini & Rossi colours, initially using Italian Pirelli radial tyres. The first race, the 1000 km of Monza, saw the LC2 take pole position by nearly a second over a Porsche 956 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_LC2).
Tyre problems and engine reliability hampered the LC2s throughout the season. The Pirelli tyres were eventually replaced with British Dunlop crossply tyres, although the car's suspension had been optimised for the Italian product.
The revised LC2s appeared at the 1000 km of Monza to start the 1984 season, with suspension redesigned to work with the Dunlop tyres. At the 24 Hours of Le Mans, both cars qualified on the front row, with Bob Wollek’s pole time being 11 seconds faster than the fastest Porsche 956.
The 1985 season saw further revisions to the LC2, with the cars running on Michelin radial tyres. The team took pole position at Mugello by 1.7 seconds ahead of the factory Porsche.
Seeing some remaining potential in the LC2, Lancia allowed the project to continue into 1986, but only as a one-car effort. At Silverstone, Autosport magazine reported the car ran out of fuel after delays and the team employed qualifying boost in order to take the lap record. Feeling the cars were not reliable enough nor fuel efficient enough to compete with the Porsche 962C, Lancia determined that the project was no longer worth supporting and Martini Racing pulled out of the championship.
Privateer teams initially attempted to carry on with older LC2 chassis. Gianni Mussato unsuccessfully entered two races in 1986 before leaving the championship, returning for one-off appearances in 1987 and 1988. The Veneto Equipe team turned to the LC2 to contend the World Sportscar Championship in 1991, but the car was unable to compete, failing to even qualify for some of the races.
This article is based solely on the supplied corpus: the Wikipedia article "Lancia LC2" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancia_LC2), the Wikipedia article "Ferrari 268/282C/308C engine" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_268/282C/308C_engine), and the Wikipedia article "Ferrari F40" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrari_F40). No external sources, such as primary archives, autobiographies, period programmes, or specialist publications, were consulted.