All-Inkl Lamborghinis dominate qualifying race at Navarra

Basseng had followed the sister All-Inkl Lamborghini of Nicky Pastorelli in the early stages, relentlessly looking for opportunities to pass his team-mate.

He had to wait until the pitstops, when coming in immediately to hand over to Winkelhock worked perfectly, with a quick out-lap for the erstwhile DTM racer putting him into the lead ahead of Pastorelli's partner Dominik Schwager when the second Lamborghini pitted a lap later. Winkelhock edged away thereafter to lead a commanding Lamborghini one-two.

That will not translate into an all-Lamborghini front row for tomorrow's championship race, though, as the five-place penalty that Schwager and Pastorelli are due for an engine change will now be applied for that event.

The Marc VDS Ford of Maxime Martin and series debutant Bertrand Baguette might have been a factor in the lead battle today too. Martin charged up the order in the opening stint and then ran three laps longer than the leaders before coming in. But problems getting the car's door shut at the pitstop meant Baguette rejoined in fourth, and was only able to regain one place.

That came at the expense of Christian Hohenadel's Hexis Aston Martin, which eventually fell to fifth behind the hard-charging Jamie Campbell-Walter's Sumo Power Nissan.

The other main protagonists early on were the Exim Corvette and the #3 Hexis Aston, but their races went awry when Clivio Piccione slid into the back of Mike Hezemans' Corvette, causing damage that would eventually force Hezemans to retire, and earning Piccione a drive-through penalty.

Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke surged from last to sixth in the Young Driver Aston Martin, though Turner had to work hard to fend off Peter Dumbreck (JRM Nissan) and Dimitri Enjalbert (DKR Corvette) at the end.

Erstwhile championship leaders Lucas Luhr and Michael Krumm finished only ninth for JRM after a first-lap incident.

Results - 36 laps:

Pos  Drivers                  Team/Car                  Time/Gap
 1.  Winkelhock/Basseng       All-Inkl Lamborghini  1h00m33.245s
 2.  Schwager/Pastorelli      All-Inkl Lamborghini      + 3.304s
 3.  Baguette/Martin          Marc VDS Ford            + 20.390s
 4.  Campbell-Walter/Brabham  Sumo Power Nissan        + 27.711s
 5.  Hohenadel/Piccini        Hexis Aston Martin       + 28.361s
 6.  Turner/Mucke             Young Driver Aston       + 39.480s
 7.  Dumbreck/Westbrook       JRM Nissan               + 40.007s
 8.  Enjalbert/Rossi          DKR Corvette             + 42.396s
 9.  Luhr/Krumm               JRM Nissan               + 44.251s
10.  Piccione/Dusseldorp      Hexis Aston Martin       + 46.335s
11.  Nygaard/Ickx             Belgian Ford             + 55.767s

Retirements:

     Leinders/Hennerici       Marc VDS Ford              31 laps
     Bernoldi/Catsburg        Sumo Power Nissan          24 laps
     Enge/Muller              Young Driver Aston         22 laps
     Hezemans/Verdonck        Exim Corvette              18 laps
     Clairay/Leclerc          Belgian Ford               13 laps