Isaac Tutumlu and Abt Racing to start on pole position in Dubai

Spaniard of Kurdish heritage Tutumlu and his team, Abt Racing, sealed pole position for 2016 24 hours of Dubai as Christer Jöns set a fantastic lap time in qualifying. The race begins at 14.00, local time, tomorrow.

The Abt Racing-entered Audi R8 LMS ultra and shared by Isaac Tutumlu, Matias Henkola, Andreas Weishaupt, Daniel Abt and Christer Jöns will start on pole position for this year´s 24 hours of Dubai. The first private testing and free practice sessions proved Abt Racing´s competitiveness and later, in qualifying, Jöns topped the overall time charts by setting a sensational 1:57.892 on his last flying lap. Jöns, the only driver who managed to smash the 1:58 barrier in Dubai, beat Christopher Mies´ Audi R8 LMS ultra and Nicky Pastorelli´s Chevrolet Corvette to pole position. Jöns ended three tenths clear of Mies and Pastorelli.
“What an incredible feeling! I have no words to describe how happy I´m right now. The 24 hours of Dubai is one of the most important GT races all around in the world, and we set the pole position beating a 100-car grid. Christer performed extremely well lapping under 1:58. It was a nice show coming from the driver and the team in terms of competiveness”, Tutumlu comments. The Barcelona-born driver also stresses that “on a personal level, I´m extremely pleased with my pace. In free practice, official Audi driver Laurens Vanthoor was less than a tenth quicker than me. And then, I went to 4th-quickest during night practice. Let´s see. It is going to be a tough race, but we have good prospects.”

The race is due to start tomorrow at 14.00 (local time, 11.00 CET). Live timing and live streaming will be available on http://www.24hseries.com/live.