It left the team in a quick scramble to redraw the pit strategy for their BMW M3, forcing them to turn original plans on their head.

What they came up with as a result ended up playing out to perfection.

So much so that they led every single lap of the race - almost unheard of for an endurance event at Mount Panorama.

Sunday's result was a redemption story for Orange driver Leahey and his co-driver Lynton who missed out on finishing last year's event due to a mechanical fault.

"I feel we're owed something today," Leahey said.

"It feels so good to get the win."

Lynton and Leahey got out to a 40 second lead in the opening hour.

Their biggest rivals looked to be the defending champion entry of Grant and Iain Sherrin, who had flown from the rear of the grid to second place in that time.

An unfortunate race re-entry for the Sherrin car followed by a pit lane infringement gave the Leahey-Lynton entry some breathing space before the halfway mark.

During the third hour, before his third pit stop out of the five required, Leahey had a full lap's gap over the rest of the field.

In that stint he pulled out the fastest lap of the day, a two mintue and 27.9685-second loop.

The pace never relented across the closing half of the race.

The Sherrin entry got back on the lead lap to keep Lynton and Leahey on their toes but dropped back again during the last half hour of the race when they were forced into a stop for tyres.

In the process of their victory Leahey and Lynton set a new race lap record of 131 laps and became the first team to win the event from pole.

"I don't reckon I've ever won a race at Bathurst so this has got to be right up there," Leahey said.

"It's a good achievement, particularly at my age. All my better racing days are in my youth. Nowadays I just do the odd race where I can with Bez because he's my mate."

Leahey said the car was sound throughout the weekend.

"There were a couple of small glitches but overall the thing was Mickey Mouse. The handling was superb," he said.

"The tyres were the biggest concern but we could have had the same set of tyres for the race and made them survive. We only went through two sets of tyres throughout the whole day."

Bathurst entrants Brad Shiels and Brad Schumacher had a sad end to their day after co-driver Mark Griffith contacted David Baker at the cutting.

The rear damage on their Subaru Impreza was too much to repair in time when it returned to the garage.

It was a tough way to end the day after Shiels had brought the car inside the top 10 during his stint.