The Dubai 24 hours will mark Isaac Tutumlu´s 2016 season start with the Spanish racer of Kurdish ancestry driving a new Audi R8 LMS ultra entered by Abt Racing. Tutumlu, teaming up with drivers such as Christer Jöns and Daniel Abt, is among the favorites to win the curtain-raiser to 24h Series.
The season debut for Isaac Tutumlu takes place, as in the preceding years, in the first half of January at the 24 hours of Dubai. Last December, Barcelona-born driver of Kurdish heritage announced participation in this year´s edition driving a new Audi R8 LMS ultra entered by Abt Racing, one of the official factory teams of Ingolstadt-based automaker. Finland´s Matias Henkola and Germans Andreas Weishaupt, Christer Jöns and Daniel Abt, the latter replacing Nicki Thiim, have been named as his teammates.
“For the third year running I will take part in Dubai 24-hour endurance race. It has become one of the most important endurance events and continues to get stronger every year. I finished second in class with the Lamborghini two years ago, unfortunately we couldn´t even start in 2015 following a massive crash in qualifying”, Tutumlu explains underlining that “I´m looking forward to driving the new Audi R8 LMS ultra and how feels like in comparison with other GT3 cars. Abt Racing is a factory Audi tea, so it is a guarantee of success. Regarding my teammates, GP2 and Formula E driver Daniel Abt will join us. Considering how experienced he is, I´m sure he will be very quick with a GT car”. About the race, Tutumlu says “we will have a hundred cars on track, which it is certainly tough for us but I love this track, I´m experienced and to be honest we should be in podium contention and, why not, we could have a shot at the win. But our rivals will be quite strong with factory drivers from Audi, Mercedes, Ferrari, Porsche or Lamborghini. Anyway we have speed and experience to achieve a good result.”
Both free practice and qualifying sessions take place on Thursday with race to get underway on Friday at 14.00 (local time).