Lamborghini team on pole for Brands Hatch Blancpain qualifying race

Bortolotti, who holds the Formula 2 lap record on the Grand Prix circuit, had pipped Daniel Juncadella's AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 to set the fastest time in Q2 but subsequently went eight tenths faster with his first lap in Q3.

That effort, a 1m22.891s, would not be beaten for the remainder of the 10-minute session.

The Italian's laptime was half a second faster than Franck Perera's pole lap last year and the same margin clear of the second place WRT Audi R8 LMS driven by Christopher Mies.

Jesse Krohn made it three different marques in the top three positions in the ROWE Racing BMW M6 GT3.

Bortolotti's team-mate Norbert Siedler will start fourth, ahead of the Sainteloc Audi of Christopher Haase and Juncadella's Mercedes, having survived a huge moment at Stirlings.

On his first appearance at Brands Hatch, Pro-Am pole-sitter Jules Gounon narrowly made the cut for Q3 in another AKKA ASP Mercedes, bumping WRT's Jake Dennis in the dying moments of Q2.

The two M-Sport Bentleys of Steven Kane and Maxime Soulet, the No. 59 Strakka Racing McLaren of Rob Bell and HTP Mercedes of last year's qualifying race winner Jules Szymkowiak also missed out on Q3, with the top 17 cars separated by half a second.

The No. 44 Strakka McLaren driven by Loris Hezemans caused a red flag in Q1 after crashing at Stirlings and will start from the rear of the field, assuming the heavy front-end damage can be repaired.

A crash for rookie Marko Helistikangas at the same corner in FP2 caused chassis damage to the Reiter Engineering Lamborghini Gallardo, which has since withdrawn from the meeting.