DTM Portimao: Bortolotti claims pole position for Lamborghini

Grasser Racing’s Bortolotti didn’t venture out on track until the final five minutes of the 20-minute session, opting to complete just a single run in the pole shootout.

However, the lack of track time didn’t appear to have any impact on his driving as he was immediately up to pace, setting the second-quickest lap time of the session behind Red Bull’s Felipe Fraga on his very first flying lap in qualifying.

DTM rookie Mikael Grenier then found over three tenths of a second to dislodge Fraga from the top and claim provisional pole for the expanded two-car GruppeM Mercedes team.

However, Bortolotti had even more pace up his sleeve and responded with a time of 1m39.678s on his final lap, clinching pole position by just 0.011s in his first qualifying session as a DTM full-timer.

The result also marked Lamborghini’s first-ever pole position in the DTM and follows Bortolotti securing a maiden podium for the Italian supercar maker as a wildcard entrant at Assen last year.

Grenier ended up second on the grid alongside Bortolotti, beating the Winward Mercedes of Lucas Auer by just 0.031s as 26 out of 29 drivers were covered by just over a second.

Fraga’s previous time of 1m39.738s put him fourth on the grid in the Red Bull-backed AF Corse Ferrari, just ahead of the Lamborghini of T3 Motorsport’s star signing Nicki Thiim.

Felipe Fraga, AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Greiner’s team-mate Maro Engel qualified sixth on his return to the DTM, setting a time of 1m39.933s in his GruppeM Mercedes.

Schubert Motorsport driver Sheldon van der Linde was the top qualifier for BMW in seventh, just ahead of the HRT Mercedes of Luca Stolz and reigning DTM champion Maximilian Gotz for Winward Mercedes.

Team Rosberg