The 29-year-old GT gun-for-hire cut his first Supercars laps aboard Matt Stone Racing’s wildcard Camaro during pre-season testing at Sydney Motorsport Park on Wednesday.
Leitch is currently in line to join Cameron Crick in MSR’s wildcard program, which could include a sprint event outing as well as co-driving in the two endurance races.
Wednesday was essentially an evaluation for Leitch, who cut 18 laps of the flowing Sydney venue as teams went about preparing for this weekend’s season-opener.
“I really enjoyed it. It’s funny sitting on the right-hand-side of the car. That was a first time for me,” Leitch told Speedcafe, having to date plied his trade in single-seaters and GT3 machinery.
“It was definitely a new experience, the car has a little bit more body roll and a little bit less downforce than I’m used to, but all in all it was really good.
“I think I did some OK laps. Definitely there’s more lap time to find in myself, just getting used to the car, but the more laps I did the more the pieces of the puzzle came together and the better it got.
“There was lots of traffic, cars coming up behind me, cars going slow, there was plenty going on out there. I was already busy enough in the cockpit let alone having to worry about everyone else!
“At one point I was catching a DJR car. You never know what [tyres] everyone else is on, but it couldn’t have been worse than what I was on…
“I actually had some half-decent tyres, but they’re very different to what I’m used to.”
Leitch’s day included fetching an extinguisher from the MSR garage when James Golding’s PremiAir Camaro arrived in pit lane on fire in the early afternoon.
“It was right outside our garage,” he said of an incident that brought out the second of three red flags for the day. “It was pretty sad to see, the car didn’t look too good in the back end.”
The final red flag came when Leitch was behind the wheel. Officials stopped proceedings to retrieve debris from the circuit, which included a chunk of asphalt sitting at the exit of Turn 7.
“One lap it was fine and the next lap there was a massive piece of asphalt sitting right on the edge of the circuit,” Leitch reported.
“If you made a mistake, it would have gone through the radiator, probably. But they sorted it out pretty quickly. The guys in the office upstairs did a good job.”
MSR also had Tim Slade and Cameron McLeod turn laps in the Camaros of Nick Percat and Cam Hill respectively.
Slade is confirmed for the enduros while McLeod, who is contesting the Super2 Series aboard a Kelly Racing Mustang this year, is expected to be confirmed shortly.
“It was great; limited laps but it was some laps which will help me in Super2 on Friday and the weekend, especially Friday rocking into Practice 1,” McLeod said of his day with MSR.
“Just getting some laps under the belt is good; the team worked flat out, so kudos to them, and just happy to be here really.
“It’s a great community MSR has got here. Obviously, I’m not ragging the car as much as Cam Hill was, but from what I could tell when I drove it, it was pretty sound.
“The team did a pretty bang on job and hopefully Car #4 can get some good results this weekend.”
