Brendon Leitch made waves on his GT World Challenge Asia powered by AWS return in the Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO.
Leitch and co-driver Jiajun Song of China celebrated their second Pro-Am class podium of the season thanks to a recovery drive for the ages by the New Zealand driver.
Leitch’s co-driver found himself in strife early in the hour-long Race 1 with lingering issues from an incident earlier on Saturday in pre-qualifying.
After losing nearly two minutes, a conveniently timed Safety Car intervention allowed Leitch to join the back of the queue after the pit stop sequence and begin his charge from 17th.
In trademark style, Leitch scythed his way through the field. In one lap, he made up five positions and by the conclusion of the race was third in the Pro-Am class and eighth overall.
It was the pair’s second podium of the season after their breakthrough earlier this season at Indonesia’s Mandalika.
“Talk about a rollercoaster day,” said Leitch.
“JJ has really been pushing himself to be better and unfortunately pushed a little too hard on Saturday morning in pre-qualifying and unfortunately crashed the car.
“Harmony Racing did an amazing job to have it fixed with just a few minutes to go before we rolled out for qualifying.
“An unusual technical gremlin crept in during Saturday afternoon’s race that cost us a bunch of time so we were a bit lucky with the Safety Car.
“It was a bit like playing Gran Turismo on easy mode just passing cars. We had a lot of speed and that showed it. We probably could have got more but once we got to the Pro-Am podium we went into low-risk mode.”
After qualifying a standout third for Sunday’s race, Leitch made his best start of the season to quickly make his way into the lead in a matter of just a few turns.
A brief Safety Car intervention paused the action before Leitch resumed the lead of the race and controlled the contest until the mid-race pit stops and driver changes.
Leitch handed the car over to Song, who led the race briefly but fell back against his more experienced co-drivers.
Another Safety Car eliminated the advantage that Leitch built up and left Song vulnerable to an attack from his rivals.
Unfortunately, an infringement on the Safety Car restart added 10 seconds to their time and dropped them out of podium contention.
Nevertheless, it was a statement drive from Leitch, who showed his ultimate speed in the opening half of the race.
“I don’t think I could have done much more on Sunday, to be honest. I started third and passed the two cars in front of me and then it was ours to lose from there,” said Leitch.
“You need a lot to go your way to win these races. The difference between the professional drivers is small but the gap from amateur to amateur is a lot bigger, and unfortunately the more experienced guys were just too good.
“Without the Safety Car, we probably could have held on for a class podium. It wasn’t to be, but that’s racing. We couldn’t finish the jon on Sunday but to come away with a podium on Saturday feels like a win because we’ve come close so many times this season.”
Leitch has already returned to Sydney to begin preparing for his Dunlop Super2 Series debut with Team Kiwi Racing as part of the Repco Bathurst 1000 weekend with Supercars.
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