Isaac Tutumlu in high spirits at Circuit Paul Ricard 1000km
The Spaniard of Kurdish heritage will contest the second round of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup in Le Castellet. Tutumlu is back to drive the ST Racing with Rinaldi-run Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 in Kurdistan Racing Team colors alongside Samantha Tan and Jon Miller.
Isaac Tutumlu will head to Le Castellet in Southern France for the second event of the 2023 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup season. The Circuit Paul Ricard 1000km is the second longest race on the calendar, as it is twice the distance of standard 3-hour races. That’s why the French venue will also serve a dress rehearsal for the famous 24 hours of Spa, which will take place on the first weekend in July.
Tutumlu will be at the wheel of the Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 of ST Racing with Rinaldi, which will carry the Kurdistan Racing Team colors once again. Canadian female ace Samantha Tan and American GT star Jon Miller will team up with the Spaniard of Kurdish ancestry to fight for top honors in the Pro-Am Cup. The whole team will be pushing to bring a strong result home following unlucky start to the season at Monza, as Tan was hit by another driver at T1 and the race came to an early end for the Kurdistan Racing Team-colored Ferrari.
“I’m looking forward to competing at Paul Ricard once again. I already drove there with the Lamborghini last year but the track brings me back very fond memories with the Porsche 997 GT3-R or the Chevrolet Corvette C6 ZR1 when I took part in the International GT Open ten years ago”, explains Tutumlu. He underlines that “we will fight back after such an unfortunate start to the season at Monza, and hopefully we will able to put together a much more positive result in the Pro-Am Cup. It will be the very last race for our Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020, as ST Racing with Rinaldi will make to debut the all-new Ferrari 296 GT3 at Spa 24 hours. We already had the opportunity to have the first run in the new GT3 contender of Ferrari during the official test days of the 24 hours of Spa last week. What an amazing car! It is almost a prototype from a driver’s point of view. But the 488 GT3 Evo 2020 is still a car to have into consideration and we expect to be pretty competitive in our class this weekend. Let’s push!”
Tutumlu will hit the track on Friday morning during Bronze test. Later, the single free practice session will take place at 14.35 with prequalifying scheduled at 19.50. On Saturday morning, qualifying session is due to take place at 11.00 with all three drivers in each car taking qualifying duties. The 1000km race is scheduled at 18.00. All track action will be streamed live on GT World YouTube channel. All times are CET.