Harry Tincknell returns to Le Mans as reigning LMP2 winner, having won last year with JOTA Sport. This year, though, he is racing in the top class of sportscar competition, LMP1. On just his second 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 23 year-old will compete in the 2015 event with Nissan, in their #22 GT-R LM NISMO.
Tincknell made the switch from single-seater to sportscar racing just over a year ago. He enjoyed a lot of success before his prototype career, including multiple race wins in Formula Renault 2.0 UK and in both Euro and British Formula Three Championships. But perhaps his must successful race came last year, when he won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the LMP2 category alongside JOTA Sport teammates Simon Dolan and Oliver Turvey. As well as that, he was a regular at JOTA’s European Le Mans Series effort, and last year scored one win and three podiums, earning him the 2014 ELMS ‘Rookie of the Year’ award.
For the 2015 event, he will partner the #22 Nissan LMP1 car with Michael Krumm and Alex Buncombe. Despite a planned race entry at the FIA World Endurance Championship‘s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps, he ended up returning to the JOTA LMP2 team to take a class win, with the Nissan LMP1 effort needing to miss the Le Mans ‘dress rehearsal’.
“I’ve only been competing in the sportscar category since April 2014 and this marks my first race contesting the highest level of Le Mans Prototype racing, the LMP1 class, and my maiden race representing a ‘factory’ team, all of which takes place at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the greatest race in the world so I’m very, very excited. The 2015 Le Mans 24 Hours will be Nissan’s first race with the GT-R LM NISMO so just to finish the season’s toughest race would be a fantastic and huge achievement.
“Collecting valuable data for the rest of the FIA World Endurance Championship season is our priority this year and then returning to the 24 Hour race 12 months down the line with this year’s experience under our belts. I will be trying to be as mechanically sympathetic as possible to make sure we get to the end of the race in the quickest time possible.
“Going back to Le Mans as the LMP2 class champion after last year’s victory in the Zytek-Nissan will be special. But I won’t dwell on it too much as I haven’t a huge amount of Le Mans experience having raced there for the first time last year even though I was lucky enough to stand on the top step of the podium.
“The test day was very difficult, due in the main, to the ever-changing weather conditions. But the varying intensity of rain enabled us to evaluate various tyre compounds while of course it was really good to be back at Le Mans. I gave the Nissan a shakedown on the Le Mans Bugatti last Tuesday and now I’m just looking forward to getting out in the car again in practice on Wednesday afternoon when hopefully the weather will be kinder to us.”
The race will start on Saturday June 13, with qualifying beginning tomorrow (Wednesday) evening.
