The race saw Caio Collet take his first win of the season, but zero points were awarded because two full racing laps of the shortened contest were not completed.
Bortoleto was running in the points when he suffered contact from Prema driver Dino Beganovic at Turn 1, ending his race, in an incident which is being investigated.
The Trident driver currently leads the standings by 42 points, and will clinch the title if he finishes tomorrow’s feature race more than 40 points clear of second place.
Speaking afterwards, Bortoleto told Autosport that maintaining his lead is “absolutely” possible on Sunday but accepted Saturday’s circumstances benefited his title hopes.
He said: “I think finishing the race today would be very good for me because we were going to get some points for sure because I was very quick.
“But at the end of the day, no points is better for me, because I keep the distance that I am for now to P2.
“But tomorrow let’s see. It should be dry and a lot of things can happen.”
Asked whether he was relieved by the lack of points, he added: “Yeah, I can’t say no, because at the end of the day I DNF, so yeah for me it’s good that there were no points for anyone.”
Paul Aron, who finished third, said he was “very disappointed” by points not being awarded but accepted “we can’t do anything about it.”
He is currently fourth in the standings, and would have taken eight points for his podium on Saturday.
Had points been awarded, Zak O’Sullivan would have moved up to second in the standings, closing the gap on Bortoleto, with Aron moving up to third.
Speaking after the race, Aron told Autosport: “To be honest I’m very disappointed, obviously it is what it is, we can’t do anything about it.
“But as I said, we were very unlucky yesterday in qualifying, we didn’t really nail the strategy but we were still inside the top 12, so there was still many points to gain.
Source: Autosport