Enge Puts G-Drive Lambo on Pole at Portimao

Tomas Enge and Roman Rusinov will start today’s Blancpain Sprint Series Qualifying Race from pole position, as Enge drove his Reiter Engineering run G-Drive Racing Lamborghini Gallardo FL2 GT3 to the fastest time around Portimao circuit in qualifying.

As was the case in both practice sessions, Lamborghini was once again in a class of its own during qualifying, with the new orange G-Drive liveried car and the championship contending No. 28 Grasser Racing Team Lambo of Jeroen Bleekemolen and Hari Proczyk battling it out for pole in Q3.

Enge delivered a 1:42.589 early on in the session, a time that Bleekemolen couldn’t match after several attempts, as the Dutchman eventually ended up 0.159s behind the Czech driver, only improving his Q2 time by a mere 0.001s.

Third fastest was the No. 2 Belgian Audi Club Team WRT R8 LMS ultra of René Rast (+0.321s), separating the championship leading No. 84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes of Maxi Götz and Maxi Buhk in P4 from its nearest rival.

The No. 9 WRT Audi of Stephane Ortelli saw its quickest time cancelled after the session for not respecting the track limits, resulting in a drop from P3 to fifth on the grid, sharing the third row with its sister No. 1 car of Laurens Vanthoor and Cesar Ramos that also lost its fastest time due to the same reason.

Sergio Jiminez kept the No. 0 Team Brasil BMW Z4 GT3 in the hunt by ending up in seventh, while BMW somewhat surprisingly seemed to struggle on the Portuguese track, with Slovakia Ring Main Race winners Dominik Baumann and Tomas Jäger starting today’s Qualifying Race from fifteenth on the grid.

RESULTS: Qualifying