China chances lined up for Leitch

New Zealand's Brendon Leitch heads off to China this week and the Invercargill ace will be aiming to win in both single seaters and sports cars in a busy weekend of racing.

Both the fifth round of the Lamborghini Super Trofeo Asia series and the fourth round of the Asian Formula 3 Championship are on the card for the international meeting at the 5.45 km Shanghai circuit, which is also the venue for the country's Grand Prix.

It will be yet another busy weekend for the 23-year old Dayle ITM and Auckland Lamborghini supported driver, who will compete again in both categories. He'll have qualifying and three races in the Asian F3 series and qualifying and two races in the spectacular Lamborghini Super Trofeo. It's the third weekend this season when Leitch has taken on 'double duty' in what is turning out to be one of his busiest ever seasons.

Leitch was given Lamborghini Junior Driver programme status this season, and has improved on every outing with his Leipert Motorsport Huracán racer. After commitments at the previous round, Italian amateur racer Massimo Vignali is back to take the amateur status seat in the Pro-Am team and lead driver Leitch reckons they'll be right there on pace at the Chinese track. Leitch currently sits third in the Pro-Am title chase with 89 points, just behind joint leaders Afiq Yazid and Toshiyuki Ochiai on 107 points.

"We've made consistent and progressive steps with set up and speed at every round," he explained. "Our qualifying performance has also improved to the point where we can legitimately challenge not only for pole positions and wins in the Pro-Am class, but also in the overall field and that's very satisfying. I feel the first overall win is going to come very soon and I know we'll be in the thick of the action.

"After some really large improvements with myself I'm really looking forward to the challenge ahead this weekend. It's going to be a fantastic opportunity for me to test myself. I've been working with my sports physiologist for the past few Lamborghini races and have had some of my best qualifying performances of my career. I've got no doubt my race pace will be great this weekend and with the progress we have made I can’t wait to get out there and put these things into practice!"

The Asian F3 championship has been super competitive so far this season and Leitch currently sits fourth in the points for BlackArts Racing, just three points of a top three position in a points table which includes 23 up and coming single seater drivers.

ENDS

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