The race saw no less than three safety cars periods and even was red flagged due to an accident on the first lap. Tuutmlu crossed the finish line tenth with his Car Collection Motorsport Audi R8 LMS after having close battles all race long with several factory drivers.
Isaac Tutumlu has achieved, in only his second ADAC GT Masters race, his first top-ten finish in the series with a display of talent. The Barcelona-born driver completed a hard-fought race battling with factory drivers of Audi or BMW. In the morning, South Africa´s Kelvin van der Linde had to cope with a damp track on slick tires. Van der Linde didn´t get them up to the right temperature and qualified 13th on the starting grid.
Several cars were caught in a pile-up on the first lap and it brought out the red flag. When the track was cleared, the field restarted behind the safety car. Van der Linde was running in tenth place when the safety car was delivered again as a result of Edward Sandström hitting the barrier. When the green flag was displayed again, van der Linde headed into the pit-lane for mandatory driver change. As soon as the brave Spanish driver rejoined the field, he got caught up in the pack battling with Markus Winkelhock and Jesse Krohn, Audi and BMW factory drivers respectively. Two other safety cars periods interrupted the race the last twenty-three minutes. Anyway, Tutumlu managed to keep his rivals at bay and took the checkered flag 10th.
“It was a challenging season opener but this top-ten finish is already a good achievement, scoring some points. On my debut, without previous experience at Oschersleben, and in only my third race with the Audi R8 LMS I managed to fight with several factory drivers. I learnt so much from this weekend, and I´m sure I gained valuable experience for future events. The weekend ended with positive conclusions”, Tutumlu summarized.