After a good recovery drive, Car Collection Motorsport-entered Audi R8 LMS driven by Spain´s driver and South Africa´s van der Linde was running seventh in race two at Lausitzring. But another Audi made contact with Tutumlu and triggered a crash, which ruined his chances to challenge for points.
Lady Luck continues to elude Isaac Tutumlu in his maiden ADAC GT Masters season. The Barcelona-born driver, one of the most renowned Spanish GT drivers, is getting involved in several incidents throughout the season. Such number of mishaps is preventing him from getting those results he is working for.
On Sunday´s race, Kelvin van der Linde made steady progress in his opening stint and, from 13th on the starting grid, moved up to 8th. Then he pitted for his mandatory pit stop and handed over the Audi R8 LMS of Car Collection Motorsport to Tutumlu. Rejoining the action, Tutumlu regained another place but a Nissan went off the track and the safety car came out. Again, it lessened the gap with drivers behind Tutumlu and he was caught in the middle of the pack when the race resumed. A Yaco Racing Audi, which already hit Tutumlu´s R8 LMS at Sachsenring, made contact with him again and resulted in the retirement with only fifteen minutes to go.
“It is so frustrating when you work so hard and circumstances beyond your control prevent you from meeting your goals. Kelvin delivered a good performance during his stint, moving up to 8th. After the pit stop, I overtook another car for seventh but the safety car period ruined our gap. At the restart, one of the Yaco Audi cars hit me, which already clashed with me at Sachsenring. I tried to regain my seventh place but he closed the door. So, I couldn´t avoid him and our race came to an early end there”, Tutumlu comments. The 30-year-old driver underlines that “despite the BoP isn´t particularly helping us, my lap times are already pretty competitive. I´m sure the good results will come before long, despite a number of incidents are preventing us from getting them so far.”
The ADAC GT Masters will resume at Red Bull Ring on 23-24 July.