Brendon Leitch started 12th and finished 12th at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship debut that promised so much more.
Racing for MDK Motorsports with Kerong Li (China) and Anders Fjordbach (Denmark), the trio had pace to be contenders for the GTD class win but found themselves on the back foot multiple times throughout the six-hour race.
The No.86 Porsche 911 GT3 R 992 suffered damage during Li’s first stint, forcing the team to replace the front bumper assembly. That dropped the car a lap down inside the first two hours.
Leitch received a drive-through penalty for contact with another GTD entry, and before halfway, the team was two laps down. However, through treacherous conditions in the pouring rain, the 28-year-old fought back and got the car back onto the lead lap.
Fjordbach got into the car for the final leg of the race and battled handling issues until he made contact with another GTD entry with just over half an hour remaining. The team was given a drive-through penalty and, in the end, finished a lap down in 12th.
Despite the result, there were positives to take away for Leitch. On his IMSA debut, the Kiwi set some of the quickest times in his class in practice against some of the world’s best GT3 drivers.
“Definitely a race of what could have been for us. We had amazing car pace and going by the other results you could see the Porsche was the right car to have,” Leitch explained.
“We just couldn’t recover from the early dramas. Kerong started in the car and did an amazing job in the first hour of the race. He has improved in spades since we began working together but unfortunately he just had an LMP2 car come across and brake in front of him and had contact. That gave us some damage but we pushed on until we had to change the front bumper.
“The car was never really the same after that. The awesome handling we had in practice and qualifying went away so we were really battling. Given we were two laps down at one point and managed to get those laps back shows just how much pace we had despite the damage. My stint was a lot of fun in the wet, getting back onto the lead lap and passing the fastest GTD and GTD PRO drivers.
“We just started fuel saving in the dry so we extended our pit stop window enough to only do one stop to the end. Unfortunately, the incident for Anders hurt so we finished where we started.
“A tough pill for the team to swallow given how much speed we had early on this weekend, but I’m happy enough with my own performance. Kerong and Anders were absolutely on it too. I’m sure we’ll be back soon to have another crack at getting another trophy.”
Leitch is also currently competing in Fanatec GT World Challenge Australia Powered by AWS with Tim Miles and Melbourne Performance Centre. His next race in Australia is at Sydney Motorsport Park on October 18-19.
Words & Images: Supplied
