Sport + Motorsport
Brendon Leitch came back from nowhere — twice — to claim back-to-back Pro-Am podiums at Spa-Francorchamps in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe series.
The Invercargill driver and American co-driver Don Yount were running the #70 Lamborghini Huracan Super Trofeo EVO2 for Leipert Motorsport in blistering heat. Qualifying was messy — Leitch narrowly missed pole, while Yount's session was wrecked by an incident under Full Course Yellow that damaged the car.
Race 1 started better than they could have planned. A front-row car stalled on the lights, handing Leitch second place immediately. He then passed Leipert teammate Axel Bengtsson at Pouhon on lap seven and built a gap of more than four seconds before pitting and handing over to Yount.
Yount briefly led before quicker Pro-class drivers came through. Two late Safety Cars bunched the field with Yount sitting sixth overall and third in class — then, on the final lap, the race leader mistakenly followed the Safety Car into the pits. That blunder promoted Leitch and Yount to fifth overall and second in Pro-Am.
There was more to it than luck. Leitch revealed after the race that a fuel pressure issue caused by the extreme heat had been quietly costing them time in the second stint.
"I got a good start and got up into second place behind my teammate and was able to get past him and drive off making a nice gap for Don," said Leitch. "He had a clear run for two or three laps and then there was a Safety Car for a crash and then another one, which was lucky for us because we had a fuel pressure issue due to the temperature. That Safety Car saved us really. We got second, which was great."
Race 2 was a harder road. Yount started 30th — last — after the qualifying damage. He kept the car clean and handed to Leitch in 27th, more than a minute behind the leaders.
Then the Safety Car came out again with 15 minutes left. Leitch, already up to 18th, used the restart to carve through the field in what was, by any measure, a proper drive. He finished sixth overall and third in Pro-Am.
"It was a great weekend. The car was really faultless. Our Leipert Motorsport engineers did a great job on getting it all tuned for the weekend," Leitch said. "Don started the second race from the back of the grid and passed a couple of cars and was just able to hang onto the back of the pack which was great. I got in the car with some fresh air and we were able to undercut a few cars before a Safety Car, which bunched everybody up. Then I was just carving through the field flat out. There were a few wee touches here and there that made the nose look a bit second-hand, but apart from that it was a cool race. It was probably one of the most fun races I've had in Super Trofeo coming from 31st all the way up to sixth overall was pretty epic."
Leitch heads to Sydney briefly before flying to Japan for round three of GT World Challenge Asia, where he joins JJ Song in the Harmony Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 at Fuji Speedway.