Grasser Scores Pole; Rivals at Back of Silverstone Grid

Photo: Patrick Hecq/SRO

Grasser Racing Team will start Sunday afternoon’s Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup race at Silverstone on pole, while a number of its leading rivals will start from the back of the field.

Mirko Bortolotti, Christian Engelhart and Rolf Ineichen scored their second consecutive Endurance Cup pole with a combined time of 1:59.690 during Sunday morning’s three qualifying sessions.

It included a best time of 1:59.114 for Bortolotti in the first session, driving Grasser’s No. 63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo which also topped Pre-Qualifying on Saturday afternoon.

They will line up alongside the Silver Cup polesitter, Attempto Racing’s No. 55 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo shared by Mattia Drudi, Steijn Schothorst and Pieter Schothorst, whose average time was 0.196 seconds slower.

Orange 1 FFF Racing Team made it two Lamborghinis in the top three with its No. 519 car driven by Phil Keen, Giovanni Venturini and Franck Perera, ahead of the No. 107 Bentley Continental GT3.

A pair of red flags during Qualifying 1, including one which prematurely ended the session with a little over two minutes left on the clock, prevented a number of drivers from setting lap times in the opening session.

As per the regulations, cars which don’t set a time in all three sessions are forced to start behind every car which did set all three times.

The cars caught out include overall Blancpain GT points leader Black Falcon with its No. 4 Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Yelmer Buurman.

Other cars which were unable to set Q1 times included AKKA ASP’s Raffaele Marciello, Vincent Abril and Michael Meadows, as well as both ROWE Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Rs, the lead Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3, and Monza winner Dinamic Motorsport’s Porsche. 

Black Falcon will therefore start from 37th despite Stolz setting the quickest time in Q2, ahead of the ROWE Porsches and AKKA ASP Mercedes filling out positions 38 through 40.

Endurance Cup points leader Dinamic Motorsport will start from 46th.

Oman Racing with TF Sport secured Pro-Am pole from 18th overall with its Aston Martin shared by Salih Yoluc, Ahmad Al Harthy and Charlie Eastwood.

Am Cup honors went the way of Barwell Motorsport’s Adrian Amstutz, Leo Machitski and Miguel Ramos from 21st overall.

The race will get underway at 3 p.m. local time (10 a.m. EDT) and can be streamed live on the series’ website and GT World YouTube channel.

RESULTS: Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.