This past weekend saw Leyton Fourie competing in the first round of the ADAC GT4 Germany championship held at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. The series is regarded as the top step of GT4 racing worldwide in which manufacturers such a BMW, Mercedes, Audi, Porsche and Aston Martin compete for top honors. Racing for FK Performance in a BMW M4 GT4, Leyton showed remarkable pace, determination and poise, running in the top 5 the entire weekend proving that he will, undoubtedly, be a race winner and championship contender. The structure of ADAC GT4 Germany comprises of a car shared by 2 drivers with each driver participating in a 20 minute Qualifying session to determine their respective starting position in each of the two 60 minute races. The 60 minute races comprise of a mandatory pit stop during a 10 minute pit window at which the driver swop takes place.
Leyton qualified his BMW GT4 in 4th place for Race 1 and immediately moved up to 3rd on lap 1. The next 30 Minutes saw the most riveting battle between Leyton and Leon Wassertheurer for 3rd position with the two drivers displaying their incredible skills – racing door to door and often seperarated by inches whilst changing between 3rd and 4th several times. Leyton pitted 5 minutes into the pit window and handed the car to his teammate, Max Rosam. FK Performance executed a perfect pit stop and Max rejoined in 4th place on the bumper of the car in 3rd. Unfortunaly their race was ended prematurely when Max got a puncture on the 3rd lap into his stint. A very unfortunate twist of fate as at least 4th place was guaranteed.
After an eventful qualifying session on Sunday, Max qualified in 7th for Race 2. He made his intentions clear from Lap 1 by improving to 5th place and put in a storming drive during his stint to move up to 3rd place before the pit stop. Pit stops took place during the FCY before the red flag caused due to a massive accident – which fortunately saw the driver emerge unscathed.
When the race resumed Leyton improved his position to 2nd within a lap but had, unfortunately, during the driver swop, eluded his minimum 90 Second pitstop time by 0.01 of a second which resulted in him having to serve a penalty lap. This saw him to drop down the field to 11th place with just 20 Minutes to go. Within those last 20 minutes Leyton showed nothing but perserverance and determination to fight back, put his head down and drove an impeccable stint improving to 5th place – finishing within 0.5 seconds of 2nd place.
The result meant a Junior Podium for 3rd and a 5th place finish overall. Despite this outcome – one that the duo definitely did not deserve – there are certainly many positves to take from the entire race weekend.
The next round takes place at Lausitzring in 3 weeks – a circuit where Leyton won 2 from 2 races in the BMW M2CS Cup championship during 2023.
Published by: Nicole Fourie
Photography by: Axcel Weichert
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