Blancpain GT Silverstone: Grasser Lamborghini takes Silverstone pole

Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart and Rolf Ineichen took the top spot in the three-part qualifying session with a 1m59.690s average aboard their Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo to follow up on their pole for the Monza series opener last month.

That put them just under two tenths up on the second-place Attempto Audi R8 LMS of Steijn and Pieter Schothorst and Mattia Drudi, who also took the silver cup class pole up with a 1m58.887s average.

Lamborghini factory driver Bortolotti, who was fastest in the opening 15-minute qualifying segment, said: "It was a good lap, right on the edge, which was the crucial point for the overall pole.

"The new Pirelli tyre works for one lap and then has a big drop, so it was important to put the lap down."

Engelhart was fourth fastest in Q2 and Ineichen 27th in Q3.

Third place went to the FFF Racing Lamborghini driven by Phil Keen, Giovanni Venturini and Franck Perera, who qualified on 1m59.924s.

The M-Sport Bentley Continental GT3 of Jordan Pepper, Steven Kane and Jules Gounon took fourth with a 2m00.007s average.

FFF's second Lamborghini took fifth position in the hands of Andrea Caldarelli, Dennis Lind and Marco Mapelli, while Dries Vanthoor, Ezequiel Perez Companc and Alex Riberas took sixth in the fastest of the WRT Audis.

The fastest lap across the three sessions was a 1m58.890s set by Nicki Thiim aboard the best of the R-Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3s.

Two red flags in the opening session resulted in 12 cars failing to set times, which means they will start the three-hour race behind all cars that completed a timed lap in each session.

They included the Black Falcon Mercedes of reigning champions Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Yelmer Burmann, the Auto Sport Promotion Mercedes Raffaele Marciello shares with Michael Meadows and Vincent Abril, and the two factory Rowe Racing Porsche 911 GT3-Rs.