Bortolotti Puts FFF Lamborghini On Top in Second Practice

Mirko Bortolotti’s late flying lap set the Hankook FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo on top of the leaderboard for Thursday evening’s Nürburgring 24 practice run.

Bortolotti shot to the head of the times with around 10 minutes of the three-hour session remaining. The Italian submitted an 8:18.575 in the No. 63 Lamborghini that he shares with fellow works drivers Franck Perera, Marco Mapelli and Giacomo Altoe.

Bortolotti, whose attempt took five seconds off the Q1 benchmark to become the fastest lap so far, established a margin of 1.662 seconds between himself and Klaus Bachler, who ended up second-quickest in the No. 33 Falken Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Manthey Racing’s No. 911 ‘Grello’ Porsche ran a further seven-tenths of a second back with Matteo Cairoli at the helm after a late advancement up the order from the Italian.

The rest of the gaps between the SP9-class GT3 cars were much tighter, with just 1.3 seconds separating the positions from third down to tenth.

Augusto Farfus brought the RMG-supported BMW Junior Team M6 GT3 up to fourth, ahead of Julien Andlauer in the No. 3 Rutronik Racing Porsche.

Andlauer finished just 0.051 seconds above Christopher Haase, who was the best Audi driver in sixth for Car Collection Motorsport and its factory-supported entry.

Ferrari recorded its best result across the two sessions held so far this weekend, as 2013 ADAC GT Masters champion Daniel Keilwitz placed seventh on an 8:21.599 aboard the Wochenspiegel Team Monschau 488 GT3 Evo 2020.

WTM’s Ferrari, which is operated by the 2019 N24-winning Phoenix Racing squad, sat one position ahead of the No. 11 Phoenix Racing Audi at the end of the session.

Adding to his second-place time, Bachler ran ninth in the other Falken Porsche, from Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW driver Christian Krognes and Luca Ludwig in the Octane 126 Ferrari.

The top Mercedes-AMG entry could only manage 16th after the manufacturer led the way in Thursday’s 90-minute daytime qualifying practice session.

Nico Bastian, who also set the top time in Q1, produced an 8:23.596 that put his No. 6 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo a shade over five seconds off the pace.

Franck Mailleux delivered the 8:27.743 that set the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG 004C in 25th overall, and above 11 GT3 cars including its SP-X category rival Mercedes-AMG GT3 that it utilizing Schaeffler Paravan’s Space Drive steer-by-wire technology.

The No. 114 True Racing entry led the CUP-X class for KTM X-Bow GTX cars.

G-Tech Competition’s No. 305 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 Clubsport paced the all-Porsche CUP 3 division, while in TCR the Hyundai Motorsport i30N beat its sister Elantra N TCR by half a second.

A third qualifying practice will be held on Friday afternoon to determine the starting positions outside the two Top Qualifying shootouts for SP9 and SP-X later that evening.

RESULTS: Qualifying Practice 2