The Spaniard of Kurdish roots gained two places at the start but was forced to retire from the race during his mandatory pit stop due to mechanical issues in his Lamborghini Huracán GT3. Overall the weekend was still positive as Tutumlu secured a podium finish on Saturday and his lap times were extremely competitive.
Isaac Tutumlu’s Sunday came to an early end as he was forced to retire from the Main Race of the Blancpain GT Series at Nürburgring. Tutumlu, after his third place in the Silver Cup yesterday, delivered a powerful opening stint in his Squadra Corse-backed Lamborghini Huracán GT3 passing two cars on the first lap. Tutumlu moved up to 19th overall and 3rd in Silver class and had a lengthy hard fought battle with Jimmy Eriksson (Mercedes) and Enzo Ide (Audi) with the Spanish driver of Kurdish roots finally passing the latter. Following a Full Course Yellow and a safety car period, Tutumlu headed for the pits to make his mandatory pit stop and hand over the Lamborghini to his teammate Max van Splunteren. However, the Dutchman couldn’t rejoin the field due to mechanical issues as mentioned above.
“Unfortunately we couldn’t complete the weekend in style after our podium in the Qualifying Race yesterday. I made a good start overtaking two rivals and then passing 2016 champion Enzo Ide. Ide, Jimmy Eriksson and I had an interesting battle throughout the race”, said Tutumlu. After the safety car period, “as an Audi stopped on the start / finish straight. I let Andy Soucek’s Bentley pass as I was heading into the pit lane and made no sense to block him. At the beginning I thought my tires got cold during the safety car period but they were finally differential issues. Max couldn’t start his stint. I thought everything was set to improve our previous performance. I would say that a second place or even a class win was within our reach. But it was a great weekend overall. I achieved a podium despite my last race in a competitive series was more than a year ago. It was a nice comeback into action!”