As revealed by Speedcafe last week, the 29-year-old has emerged as a surprise favourite to land a co-drive alongside Cameron Crick in Matt Stone Racing’s wildcard Camaro.

MSR’s wildcard campaign will commence with Crick in Sydney and is also locked in for the Endurance Cup events at The Bend and Bathurst.

The program could take in a second sprint event too, pending approval from Supercars.

Hailing from NZ’s southernmost city, Invercargill, Leitch is a product of New Zealand’s Formula Ford and Toyota Racing Series (now CTFROC) open-wheel classes.

In recent years he’s carved out a reputation as a GT gun for hire, tackling races in Europe, the US, the Middle East, Asia and Australia in a variety of GT3 equipment.

He made his Bathurst 12 Hour debut last month in a Lamborghini engineered by Matt Stone Racing’s technical co-ordinator Paul Forgie, who is said to highly rate his fellow Kiwi.

Leitch will drive the #35 MSR Camaro on Wednesday at Sydney Motorsport Park, where the team will have a full complement of six drivers across its three cars.

Cameron McLeod is also set to cut his first laps with the team ahead of an expected co-drive with Cam Hill in car #4, while the recently announced Tim Slade joins Nick Percat in #10.

“Matt Stone Racing can confirm that Brendon Leitch and Cameron McLeod will be joining us at the Sydney test day,” a team spokesman confirmed to Speedcafe.

“We will be evaluating both drivers as part of the pre-season test program we are running at Sydney Motorsport Park.”

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A host of teams are set to give their co-drivers laps on Wednesday, which under revised rules is one of just two test days for the season.

The day will include Mark Winterbottom’s first laps with Tickford Racing since the end of 2018, having undergone a seat fitting in Cam Waters’ #6 Mustang late last week.

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Leitch is aiming to join what is likely to be a bumper crop of Bathurst 1000 rookies this year.

Erebus Motorsport pair Jarrod Hughes and Jobe Stewart are already locked in, as is Harri Jones (Team 18) and wildcard runners Zach Bates (Triple Eight), Lochie Dalton and Rylan Gray (Tickford Racing).

Trans Am star Nathan Herne is meanwhile expected to land at PremiAir Racing in place of the MSR-bound McLeod.