The closing weekend of the season was eventful from the word go, with numerous grid penalties that saw the Century Motorsport BMW promoted to pole position overnight, before an appeal from Beechdean Motorsport – the original polesitter – returned it the front row to its initial post-session look.
But this was nothing compared to the mayhem of Sunday’s race, where the permutations meant Leung and Harper needed to finish in the top five to stand any chance of taking the title. This task, however, was made more difficult with a 20-second success penalty applied following the duo’s victory last time out at Brands Hatch.
This was partially negated with championship rival James Cottingham – alongside Philip Ellis rather than Jonny Adam – also having a five-second success penalty.
Aware of the job he needed to do, Leung put the hammer down early on, running side-by-side with Andrew Howard through the Craner Curves before making his move stick into the Old Hairpin.
Unrelenting, Leung quickly pulled out a five-second lead before a 20-minute safety car period ruined his progress. The intervention was caused after the #86 and #80 Ginetta GT4 cars collided on the run to Redgate, crashing heavily into the tyre barrier.
When the action got under way, Leung resumed his charge and this time pulled out a 19.7s lead before a glut of crashes, including a high-speed off for John Seale which forced a further 10-minute safety car disruption.
With the period taking proceedings up to the GT3 pit window, this inflicted maximum pain for the BMW entry.
Source: Autosport