Saturday was not the start the Spanish driver and Barzani Racing had wished for. In race one of the International GT Open at Nurburgring, they were forced to retire due to engine problems in the Autorlando Sport Porsche 997 GT3 R.

Tutumlu, sharing the Autorlando Sport Porsche 997 GT3 R with Matteo Beretta, suffered an engine failure after ten minutes and his race was over.

Earlier in the morning, during the qualifying session for race one he clocked a time of 1:59.345, 7th in Super GT class and was the quickest Porsche on the starting grid. His race start suffered after contact, and when he was marching through the field he stopped due to an engine problems.

“It was a real shame, but anyway if we had to retire, today´s race was less damaging that that to be celebrated tomorrow. At the start I was hit by another car, as López and Campaniço collided and I went off-track. I was overtaking several cars, two or three each lap when, without prior warning, the engine broke. All of a sudden the engine suffered an oil leak”, Tutumlu explains. For tomorrow, he points out that “we will use another engine, it is not new but works perfectly. The organization has to rebalance the BoP for future meetings because our Porsche, in spite of it is a Super GT car, is notoriously slower than Chevrolets or Ferraris, even the GTS cars”.