Isaac Tutumlu takes a respectable 5th place at Nürburgring
Spanish-Kurdish Tutumlu and his teammate at Leipert Motorsport, Finland´s Anttila, come good at Nürburgring after problematic qualifying session with red flags flying. Tutumlu and Anttila managed to put on a good recovery drive to finish 5th and scoring valuable points.
Saturday didn´t go as planned at the beginning but later Isaac Tutumlu and his teammate Jesse Anttila overcame difficulties and finished fifth with their Leipert Motorsport-entered Lamborghini Huracan during today´s Blancpain Super Trofeo race at Nürburgring.
In the morning, in red flag hit qualifying session, Tutumlu struggled to ensure some clear track space and, during his only flying lap, he had to overtake several slow cars. As the Spanish racer was trying to eliminate any possibility of mistakes, he couldn´t improve 9th on the starting grid. Today´s rolling start was particularly difficult with several incidents and Tutumlu dropping to 11th. But, little by little, he gained places and, on lap 11, was 6th and at a quicker pace soon he was catching up the leaders. When Tutumlu headed into the pit lane, and Anttila took over from the Barcelona-born driver, the Finnish driver rejoined 6th. Anttila still passed another car for fifth when his rival was given a drive-through penalty. They both scored valuable points for drivers´ championship.
“Here it´s very important to qualify for a good starting position but today, completing a single flying lap, it wasn´t possible. I struggled with traffic and decided to take no risks. Our race start wasn´t brilliant because there were several clashes and, in spite of I wasn´t hit, cost me a lot of time during the opening laps”, Tutumlu commented afterwards, remarking that “fifth place was a rewarding finish for us and score more points for the championship. Tomorrow Jesse starts 11th and, if he manages to pass several cars during his stint, we will get a good shot for the podium”.
Race 2 starts tomorrow at 10.50.