ISAAC TUTUMLU MAKES PROMISING START TO GT WORLD CHALLENGE EUROPE SPRINT CUP CAMPAIGN AT BRANDS HATCH

The Spaniard of Kurdish ancestry will contest the curtain raiser event of the 2022 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup season this weekend. Tutumlu, who has never raced at Brands Hatch before, will be sharing the GSM Novamarine-run Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo with Austrian Gerhard Tweraser.

Isaac Tutumlu made a promising start to the 2022 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup at the wheel of the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo in Kurdistan Racing Team by Tigris colors. Despite the Spanish driver of Kurdish ancestry hadn’t never competed at Brands Hatch before and his team GSM Novamarine was also making their debut with GT3 machinery, Tutumlu and Gerhard Tweraser were constantly moving from less to more.

On Saturday morning, Tutumlu and his teammate clocked a lap time of 1m24.689s in the free practice session. A couple of hours later, the duo of GSM Novamarine posted a time of 1m25.035s in the prequalifying session. Tutumlu took qualifying duties in Q1 and he scored a lap time of 1m24.791s, which was 9^th-fastest in Silver Cup class. Then Austrian Tweraser slightly improved Tutumlu’s best time with a lap of 1m23.832s in quicker track conditions during Q2.

Sunday was devoted to both 60-minute long races. Tutumlu made the opening stint in Race 1 avoiding any incident. By the halfway point, Tutumlu made his mandatory pit stop to hand over the Lamborghini to Tweraser, who took the checkered flag in 8^th place. In Race 2, Tweraser took the start in the Lamborghini but unfortunately a clash with another car, on the incident-marred first lap, damaged suspension and they couldn’t further improve a ninth place at the end.

“We knew it would be a tough weekend considering our team is new in GT3-based racing. But we made solid improvements throughout the event. We still have to solve an issue with suspension, which was the reason why both I and Gerhard struggled a bit in qualifying”, explained Tutumlu. The Spaniard continued saying that “I managed to gain some places in the morning race. Unfortunately, a clash on the opening lap of Race 2 dashed our chances as it damaged some aero parts and changed camber. So, the car was quite difficult to drive and our goal was to bring it home in one piece. We will continue working for Round 2, which takes place in two weeks’ time, and I am sure we will continue taking steps forward there. Keep pushing!”

Source. CTR Press