The #16 Grasser Racing Lamborghini Huracan will start Sunday afternoon’s Blancpain GT Endurance Cup race at Silverstone from pole position. Lamborghini factory driver set the fastest time of 1:58.469 in the early morning qualifying session, leaving a gap of just under three tenths of a second to the next fastest man, Franck Perera in the #74 ISR Audi R8 (a Pro-Am Cup entry). Third fastest, around his home track, was Alexander Sims in the #99 ROWE Racing BMW M6, an encouraging sign after troubled early-season races for the German team.
Bortolotti’s time was 2.4 seconds up on last year’s pole and he described it as “the lap of my life. It was perfect, there was no traffic and the car worked really well, the balance was good. We worked for a good balance in qually and the race yesterday, so we’re in good shape.”
Second-place (and Pro-Am pole) man Perera said: “The car is pretty good, this result and our pole at Brands confirm the step we’ve made since Misano. I like this track, I was on pole here two years ago in a Porsche. I think we can fight for the win, my team-mates are very competitive.”
Sims was happy with his third place, too. “I think that was a sensible effort, we definitely didn’t have another half a second to match Mirko,” said the BMW factory driver. “We have a good package and considering our first race with the car was just six weeks ago, this is great. We’re still getting to grips with both new-tyre pace and tyre life over a stint, so there’s definitely more to come.”
Max Buhk went round fourth-fastest in the #84 HTP Mercedes (above), while there was a very strong showing from the #14 Emil Frey Jaguar, which lines up fifth overall thanks to the efforts of Albert Costa. Clemens Schmid made it two HTP Mercs in the top six at the wheel of the #85 AMG-GT, with the top six cars covered by a second.
Steven Kane was top Bentley qualifier in seventh, driving the #7 Continental GT, ahead of Filipe Albuquerque in the #3 WRT Audi and Matteo Malucelli in the #34 Scuderia Praha Ferrari. Rounding out the top 10 was the Motorbase Aston Martin, Jonny Adam managing to qualify well after the team repaired the car following co-driver Devon Modell’s shunt in Q1 (see below).
Earlier, the first portion of qualifying was red-flagged after contact on the way in to Maggots-Becketts between Lucas Ordonez in the #23 Nissan and Peter Mann in the #51 Am Cup Ferrari. It left the latter car with rear corner damage and the former with a front-right puncture. There was also an off for Modell in the #44 Oman Racing Aston, with the Motorbase-run car losing a wheel in the process.
Another red flag, very early in Q2, was caused by Niels Stievenhart beaching the #42 CMR by Sport Garage Ferrari in the gravel on the way out of Club. After the car was pulled out by a telehandler, the session resumed with just under 10 minutes remaining.
