Piquet Jr. Sweeps Grand Finals Poles

Nelson Piquet Jr. completed a sweep of both qualifying sessions to claim overall pole position for the two Lamborghini Grand Finals races at Portimao.

The Brazilian reeled off a lap of 1:41.711 aboard the No. 130 ANSA Motorsports Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 to claim pole position in the first 20-minute session. He withstood a challenge from Bonaldi Motorsport’s Loris Spinelli, with the Italian a mere 0.012 seconds behind in second place.

Patrick Kujala completed the top three in the No. 150 O’Gara Motorsport/Change Racing/USRT car, with Oregon Team’s Lewis Williamson claiming fourth and putting Oregon Team on Pro-Am pole position for the opening race in the process.

Piquet Jr. then once again came out on top in the second session that followed immediately after, although he went noticeably slower with a best lap of 1:42.293.

However, it was still enough to remain ahead of Kujala by 0.174 seconds. Michelle Gatting completed the top three in the No. 83 Iron Dames entry, although the Danish racer lacked behind Kujala by nearly half a second.

Kyle Marcelli put Wayne Taylor Racing’s No. 101 car fourth, ahead of Target Racing driver Milan Teekens and Amaury Bonduel.

After Williamson led the way in the first session, Pro-Am pole position for the second race came courtesy of the No. 70 Leipert Motorsport driven by Brendon Leitch.

The New Zealander set a best lap of 1:43.331, putting him ahead of Pro-class drivers Giano Taurino and Jean Luc D’Auria, with Rexal FFF Racing Team driver Antonin Borga second in class. The rest of the top five in class was made up by North American contenders, with Bryan Ortiz third, Patrick Liddy fourth and Bryson Lew fifth.

Pole position for the Am class races went to American squads in both sessions. Jordan O’Brien’s No. 199 ANSA Motorsports entry led the way in session one with a best time of 1:43.454.

The American driver maintained a comfortable margin of 0.685 seconds over Leipert Motorsport’s Gabriel Rindone, with David Staab third in the No. 148 Precision Performance Motorsports car.

Staab’s co-driver Nikko Reger then led proceedings for the second session, although by a much closer margin of just 0.063 seconds over the No. 5 GT3 Poland car driven by Adrian Lewandowski.

Alex Au completed the top three for Dream Racing Motorsports, with Tyler Hoffman fourth for TPC Racing.

LB Cup honors went to Dream Racing’s Charlie Martin for Race 1 and Gerard van der Horst for Race 2.