PZ Oberer Zürichsee by TFT Racing and Niki Leutwiler’s return to the International GT Open was crowned with two podiums as the French squad returned to racing at the Paul Ricard circuit.

Niki Leutwiler, who qualified second in AM class at the wheel of their Porsche GT3R for Saturday’s Race found himself jumping into first in class at the start of the race but moments later was involved in a tussle with one of the PROAM cars, luckily it was only paint that was traded and Leutwiler was able to continue despite losing a place to Scholze in the GT Speed Mercedes.

Leutwiler second in class and ninth overall pushed on to close the gap on Scholze but also had to defend hard from the McLaren of M.Hahn who was all over his tail pipes. By lap six the order remained the same and the PROAM Bentley of Umbraresu had now also joined the battle for ninth place. The faster PROAM car soon got the better of the McLaren and moved up into tenth behind Leutwiler. While Leutwiler was doing a great job defending his position this also allowed the leading AM car to pull away increasing the Mercedes lead by eight seconds.

Leutwiler was happy to see the pit window open and pulled in for the mandatory pit stop allowing him a little breathing space after having to defend so hard, but the race was not over for Leutwiler as he once again was the only car in the field not to have two drivers. Leutwiler exited the pits still in ninth and four places behind the class leader of Scholze but again was under pressure from behind. With only twenty-seven minutes remaining the rest of the field had by now completed their pit stops and Leutwiler was still second in class and eighth overall and was looking good for second place but unfortunately race control announced that Leutwiler had been served a three second penalty for a pit stop infringement. Leutwiler closed the gap on the class leader but was also having to defend his overall position from the PROAM McLaren and this was allowing the third place AM Mercedes of liebhauser to close the gap to only 1.5 seconds, Leutwiler finally crossed the finish line in second place only three seconds behind the class leader but due to the 1.5 second penalty had to settle for third in class.

Qualifying for race two on Sunday did not go to plan. Leutwiler put in a strong time placing him again second in class. he pulled into the pits with only a couple of laps remaining but unfortunately on the very last lap of qualifying he found that he lost two places dropping him down to fourth on the grid.

Leutwiler made a blistering start to race two carving his way through traffic to lead the AM class by the end of lap one and was sixth overall. By lap five the faster PROAM Bentley of Mettler was on his tail, Leutwiler managed to fend of the faster PROAM car for a couple of laps but soon had to concede the place, two laps later Leutwiler lost the AM lead place to Alexey Neson in the Mercedes.

After lap thirteen the pit window was open and Leutwiler decided to come in early. The team made a clean pit stop and came back out on track first in place and seventh overall, by the end of all the pit stops Leutwiler was running sixth overall and still first in class.

With only nine minutes remaining Leutwiler was looking good to take the team's first win of the season and was still pushing for overall track position but heading into the last corner Leutwiler was looking for a way past fifth place and made a daring move on the inside. Unfortunately the move did not pay off and they both collided spinning Leutwiler round and stalling the car leaving him stranded on the track. Leutwiler did eventually restart the car but by now had dropped down to twelfth place and third in class and with only minutes left on the clock Leutwiler had to settle for third place in class.