Brendon Leitch getting up to speed in Super2 debut
Team Kiwi Racing rookie banked 17 laps in opening practice session
GT ace encouraged despite ending first session at tail of the field
Team Kiwi Racing rookie Brendon Leitch has already beaten the likes of Chaz Mostert, Will Brown, and Jayden Ojeda to a GT World Challenge Australia pole position at Mount Panorama.
However, as he discovered first-hand on Thursday morning at Mount Panorama, a Supercar is a completely different animal to tame.
On Thursday morning, Leitch had a quiet start to his maiden Super2 weekend, finishing at the tail of the 18-car field, three seconds behind pacesetter Lochie Dalton.
Practice 1 was all about learning the differences in driving a Supercar from a GT car at Mount Panorama, with the 30-year-old Kiwi relaxed about his performance in what was an eye-opening session.
“I feel like there’s zero similarities, everything is different. The only thing the same is they have four black round things," Leitch quipped to Supercars.com following Practice 1.
“It’s just trying to understand the brake shape of the car properly, throttle application and roll phase, and the balance that’s required for the car to be quick around here.
“It’s just a completely different beast to what I’m used to, so getting my head around that on top of being on the DUNLOP tyre and having to manage that a little bit and look after it.
“It likes to be brought in quite gently, so there’s a lot to learn, but really enjoying the process.”
Leitch has the experience of Super2 stalwart Terry Wyhoon in his corner at Bathurst, while TKR owner and founder David John has flown over more than 100 fans on the TKR official tour, as well as a Kiwi crew to work on the car.
The Kiwi's first step into competitive Supercars running coincides with the return of the TKR name to the Supercars paddock for the first time since the opening rounds of the 2010 Super2 season, a proud moment for both TKR and Leitch.
“It’s really cool, I had a lot of fun out there. There’s quite a lot of process in building into it in one of these cars around here, it’s my first time driving the ZB Commodore here," Invercargill-born Leitch said.
“Just getting used to it, didn’t want to do anything silly and put myself on the back foot. It was a really positive session. Lots of improvements for myself, the car was lovely to drive, just building in nicely and I’m excited for the next session now.
“We’ll put different tyres on the car, do a little bit more long running I’m sure and we’ll be ready to go for qualifying tomorrow.”
After getting comfortable in the first 40 minutes of the weekend, Leitch has an eye on extracting more performance from the #021 Commodore in Practice 2, before getting his first taste of Boost Mobile Qualifying on Friday morning.
“We’ll start to squeeze it a little bit more in the next session, we have some more tyres to put on, so that’ll be good," Leitch added.
“We’ll get a bit of a gauge on where we’re at. We made some big steps towards the end of that first session.
“I’m hoping that the next session we can do something a bit more relevant and closer to the front, obviously without going too crazy, it’ll be building all the way until qualy I think, for sure.”
Practice 2 will commence at 2:50pm local time.
