News
By Lindsay Beer
Invercargill driver Damon Leitch has ended the season as top kiwi in the 2015 Toyota Racing Series, placing seventh in the final series points. Leitch and his younger brother Brendon drove for Nelson based Victory Motor Racing in the series which concluded at Manfeild in Feilding at the weekend.echo adrotate_group(26, array("fallback" => 0, "weight" => 0, "site" => "no"));It was another mixed weekend for 22-year-old Damon in his Post Haste Couriers/Zero Fees car. He qualified ninth fastest for Saturday afternoon’s race but the all important second session for grid positions in the New Zealand Grand Prix was cut short before he set a good lap time leaving him to start nineteenth in the biggest race of the championship. On Saturday afternoon he raced home in twelfth spot in the Dan Higgins Memorial Trophy Race after getting involved in a battle with other cars. On Sunday morning his gearbox wouldn’t select a gear at the start of the race, leaving him to start behind the rest of the field. As he picked his way through the order another competitor crossed in front of him damaging the front wing on his car, costing him a good finish. From his lowly grid position in the Grand Prix Damon made his way through the field in a car that was “not so good.” He battled home in tenth, the first kiwi finisher in his home Grand Prix.
Meanwhile 19-year-old Brendon felt his ITM/Post Haste Couriers car was good in qualifying although windy conditions made it hard to get consistency. However from eighteenth on the grid on Saturday afternoon he worked his way up to thirteenth before he got caught behind a group having their own battle. “I just had to sit and wait,” he said.
In Sunday morning’s race he found the car hard to drive and came home in thirteenth before his final race of the round, the Grand Prix was spoilt at the first corner. Another car went off the circuit and came back on only to damage the nose of Brendon’s car. He made a pitstop but then had to stop for more repairs due to the incident, eventually rejoining down the order.
Despite the honour of being the top placed New Zealander this was the toughest season for Damon who has raced in this series for five seasons. After twice finishing third amongst grids of up and coming international stars, little went right this time and he had few opportunities to show his pace. “We just had all sorts of problems,” he said on Sunday evening.
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For Brendon it was a series of positives. “We got some good points and it was the best championship I have been involved in. We were on the podium and I had the race win at Teretonga. It was really good. I learned a lot and I am looking overseas for my next opportunity!”
Sixteen-year-old Lance Stroll of Canada was the big winner of the weekend, winning the Grand Prix and the Series. Brandon Maisano of France and Santino Ferrucci of the USA were the other two race winners from the round.