Despite losing 35 minutes because of a broken driveshaft, Leipert Motorsport managed to repair its car quickly enough to rejoin the race. Spaniard driver of Kurdish heritage delivered another brilliant and matched lap times with Mercedes and Ferrari factory drivers. Finally, Tutumlu claimed class win at the Brno 12 hours teaming up with Gitlin and Watt.
Fantastic performance of Isaac Tutumlu at the wheel of his Leipert Motorsport-entered Lamborghini Huracan at the 12 hours of Brno, where the 24H Series came to an end. Sharing the car with Russia´s Vadim Gitlin and Briton Adrian Watt, Tutumlu already set pole position in SPX class time on Friday.
The 12 hours of Brno race got underway at the noon and Gitlin made an opening double stint. Although Gitlin lost time, immediately after Tutumlu retook the wheel, the Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini moved up to 5th from 15th and the Barcelona-born driver setting quicker lap times than the leaders. But a broken driveshaft cost the trio more than 30 minutes. With almost ten hours to go, Tutumlu set metronomic pace both in daylight conditions and at night and finally Leipert Motorsport crossed the finish line first in SPX class and 18th overall. Tutumlu posted a personal best lap of 2:03.493, quicker than most of GT3 cars.
“Finally, we managed to finish first in SPX class, not bad considering we need to push hard to move from 40th to 18th. Anyway, without driveshaft problems I think a top-ten finish was within our reach. At a personal level, I am very happy with my performance because my lap times were pretty similar to those set by Thomas Jäger, Matteo Malucelli or Alex Müller. It is worth mentioning our Lamborghini was carrying extra weight to slow down his pace in comparison with GT3 cars”, Tutumlu commented. Finally, he said “I want to focus on our class win because our race was excellent. In addition, I posted lap times close to factory drivers with a lower class car”.