Isaac Tutumlu ran in podium contention before car retired

The Barcelona native was forced to retire when his teammate Çapan suffered an incident heading into the pit-lane damaging the radiator of the Car Collection Motorsport’s Audi R8 LMS. Tutumlu and his teammates were extremely competitive and were running 3rd in A6-Am class and seventh overall after reaching the six-hour mark at the 12H Imola.

Isaac Tutumlu almost recorded his first podium finish of the season in A6-Am class at 12H Imola, which also counted towards the 24H Series, but finally the Spaniard and his teammates Ali Çapan, Horst Felbermayr Jr. and Siegfried Kuzdas were forced to retire. Despite they couldn’t make it to the finish, Tutumlu delivered another strong performance to lead the Car Collection Motorsport assault with the Audi R8 LMS still penalized by BoP in comparison with Mercedes-built AMG GT3 cars.

After private test sessions and free practice, Tutumlu took charge of qualifying duties securing 3rd place in class and ninth spot on the grid with his lap time of 1:44.186.But the starting position is not that important for a 12 hour race. The first four hours took place on Friday afternoon with Çapan, Felbermayr and Kuzdas completed their stints as professional drivers such as Tutumlu had a maximum time limit of three hours and his task was to attack on Saturday. His teammates finished 9th and 3rd in class on Friday with Tutumlu gaining two places in his first stint. Tutumlu’s lap times was as fast as race leaders. With four hours to go, the incident mentioned above brought his race to an early end.

“Well, that’s racing and you have nothing more to do. The 3rd-place finish was in our pocket and it would have been excellent reward for everybody, as we all are putting huge effort this season. In the morning, I was running third in the order but we only managed to gain two places due to a few laps lost on Friday”, explained Tutumlu. The seasoned GT driver added: “our pace wasn’t particularly outstanding in qualifying but then our pace was much better. In fact, my fastest lap and those posted by Pro class cars were very similar.”