Rise of Darren Leung: From Gainsborough track day to Le Mans with Yorkshire's United Autosports and McLaren in just six years

It is also one that proves you’re never too old, and with desire and hard work, more can be achieved than you thought possible.

Leung was 31 when, at the behest of friends, he sat behind the wheel of a Radical SR3 and without knowing it at the time, pressed the accelerator on a major u-turn in his life. He had already made a success of the first phase of his professional life, the quantitative analyst from Harrogate who studied physics at university in Leeds and went onto set up a company that made algorithms predicting sporting events and trading in the betting markets.

But that test day in 2019 was life-changing, setting him on a journey that would lead to a British GT championship, European Sprint GT title and a second-place finish in a BMW at Le Mans last year.

In 2025 he will make his debut for Yorkshire’s own United Autosports driving a McLaren in the World Endurance Championship, a competition that is headlined by Le Mans. He is 37 and didn’t even pass his driving test until he was 26.

“It’s mental how far I’ve come. This will be my fifth year as a racing driver, my second year at Le Mans. It still doesn’t compute,” Leung tells The Yorkshire Post from his home in Alwoodley.

Leung’s choice of the word ‘compute’ says a lot. Given his background in figures and algorithms, getting behind the wheel of a car and driving at 150mph jars with the principles he had previously lived by.

“That was the toughest aspect at the beginning but actually one of the most attractive things about it,” says Leung, who had earned enough money through his business interests to buy a Radical SR3 single-seater and turn occasional track days into test days.

“I had lived my life being highly analytical, making decisions because they made sense, because mathematically it was the right thing to do. Then you get in the car and you have to start doing the opposite. You’re working on instinct. It taught me to look through the analysis, it taught me to look through the obvious facts that are in front of your face.

“Touch wood, I’m a safe driver – I rarely crash or shunt. Part of that is because I always go forwards. In a race scenario I generally tend to hesitate a lot less compared to other guys. There is a small subset of scenarios that are genuinely high risk, but then there are a lot where the hesitation of a rival driver causes an accident.

“On race starts, statistically I move forward (gain positions) a lot more and get caught up in fewer accidents.

“That’s not because I’m a nutter at the start, it’s because I know the risk of sitting there and hesitating means you’re out of control with what’s going on behind you, whereas if you’re going into gaps you can control the narrative.”

This was not an overnight revelation. It took time for Leung to get to that point.

He was too big a frame to sit in a single-seater like the Radical, so continued exploring what was still a curiosity by signing up for the Ginetta GT Academy in 2021.

“It was a hobby I was really enjoying at this stage, but if I’m doing something I want to do it right,” says Leung, who had begun immersing himself in learning about the sport he was venturing into. “Ginetta GT Academy was a great place to learn. Lando Norris had gone down that route.

“You have guys that are terrible and a potential hazard on the same grid as the next F1 star. It’s a good laugh, everyone gets on really well.”

That warm embrace of the paddock was a welcome one for Leung, one he had not experienced in his previous walk of life.

“It doesn’t matter who you are, what level you’re coming in at, you could be the apprentice tyre washer or you could be the team principal or a big name racing driver, none of that really matters because everyone is really passionate about the racing and that dominates the culture,” he says.

“That’s part of the reason I ended up getting so immersed in it, it’s just such a nice place to be.”

This ‘gentleman driver’ as he called himself was beating kids fresh out of karting, but he was learning all the time.

The first time he drove on slick tyres he had no idea it was just a flat piece of rubber that needed heating up. He didn’t swerve the car enough at the start, floored it, and spun off. An hour later, after getting to grips with the tyre, he had set the second fastest lap.

“I’m here to learn,” was his mantra. “I’m not here to glory hunt, I want to keep testing myself.”

Glory was starting to find him though.

At the end of 2022 he was asked to race in a British GT car, the equivalent level of the British Touring Car Championship.

“I set myself a low bar – don’t embarrass yourself,” he remembers. “We ended up winning the race.”

It was that team, Century’s, first win for years. Twelve months later, with a full season of Leung sharing driving duties with Dan Harper, they were British champions.

“I think about that day now, when we won the championship, and I really struggle to think of a moment in my life that beats it,” says Leung of the championship-clinching drive at Donington.

“We’d put a hell of a lot of work in as a team. We had bad luck at times, a lot of competition, but the practice paid off and we came into our stride.

“I love the moments when it’s do or die, all coming down to a single moment. It’s rare you come across these moments in your life where you get to find out what you’re made of.

“Having 40,000 people there watching this championship decider, I’m on the front row, P2, knowing I’ve got to make a move from the off and then go round a corner and make it stick at 150mph; for me that was a massive feeling of freedom that I had that in my arsenal now, because two years before I definitely didn’t. That was the year when the realisation dawned that moving forwards was better than sitting back.

“I went out there and did exactly that. I went round Andrew Howard and never got passed him until I was into the old hairpin, and then full throttle down Craner Curves. It was a massive game of chicken.”

Leung won and earned another promotion with it, this time into a BMW in the World Endurance Championship for 2024.

He won the Six-hours of Imola and finished second in his class in the fabled 24-hours of Le Mans.

“I went into Le Mans not knowing a lot about the history, I knew it was the most attended race on the calendar and that F1 drivers want to win Le Mans one day, but that was about it,” he smiles.

“It was a privilege to be there, never mind taking part in it.

“It didn’t sink in until the end of the year when I saw photographs of it and I got this flood of emotion come over me.

“You have to block it out at the time, because otherwise you’d be a nervous wreck.

“It was an incredibly special thing to have done and I can’t tell you how grateful I am to all the people, big and small, who played a part in helping me race.”

He gets to do it again in the colours of United and a McLaren car.

“That will be ridiculously special,” he says.

The United move came about through knowing their team-principal and co-owner Richard Dean, another proud Yorkshireman, through the circuit.

“I was always impressed by the outfit United were running, very meticulous, detailed,” says Leung. “Richard just seems like one of those considered guys. When he speaks, there’s a lot of merit in his opinion, every time, and I always thought one day I’d like to go racing with him because I could learn a thing of two from him.”

As he enters his fifth year of racing, what’s the ambition? “I’ve always shied away from result’s goals. It’s all well and good saying I want to win Le Mans or I want to be a world champion.

“Obviously I do want that and will do everything it takes to be that. But my goal is anything I do I want to give it absolutely everything. I’m the sort of guy who makes everybody else tired in pursuit of that.”

Leung doesn’t feel old and his reaction times remain sharp. He is also fitter than he has ever been – and he played rugby and was a powerlifter in his youth.

Every day he gets behind the wheel of a car is a learning day. “For everything I do correctly, I can see five things I could have done better,” he says, before making one final reflection on his journey: “All of this was possible because I wasn’t afraid to look an idiot, I was willing to get stuck in and be honest with myself about my performances, so I always found a way to improve.”