Tincknell's Next Chapter

As the road to Formula One becomes increasingly less travelled, with many a young driver’s progress halted by the prohibitive costs involved and limited opportunities for advancement, the ever-expanding pool of manufacturer teams searching for the best talent available to tackle the World Endurance Championship – not to mention the world-famous Le Mans 24 Hours – has proved an attractive lure for some of the sport’s brightest and best, who are making the leap to sportscars in their droves in the quest to become fully paid-up professionals.  

Much has been made of Brendon Hartley’s leap from a hard-up GP2 part-timer to Porsche factory driver in just a few seasons, while the top three in the 2013 GP2 championship, Fabio Leimer, Sam Bird and James Calado, have all switched disciplines in an attempt to follow suit. But the trend doesn’t stop there; just ask Harry Tincknell. After a fruitful spell in Formula 3, capped with a sterling win on home soil at Silverstone last season, the Briton is taking the next step in his career with Jota Sport in the European Le Mans Series and fancies his chances with the first round of the championship back at the Northamptonshire circuit where he beat last year’s championship rivals, Ferrari protégé Raffaele Marciello and Swedish starlet Felix Rosenqvist, hands down from pole position.

“It was a good year, I won my home race at Silverstone, qualified on the front row for the Masters and had some good results,” says 22 year-old Tincknell, who was the best of the Carlin team in 2013, behind the Mercedes-powered Prema entries of Alex Lynn and Lucas Auer in fifth. “We were the top Volkswagen engine as well, so overall we did a good job.

Tincknell celebrates victory at Silverstone in FIA F3 in 2013. (Credit: Harry Tincknell)

“We already knew really at the start of last year that sportscars was probably where I was going to be at for this season. If you look at top level single-seaters at the moment, you’d have to say that the opportunities to be a paid professional driver are shrinking, whereas in sportscars it’s only increasing because of the number of manufacturers coming in the last few years; and there are more being talked about for the future. If you look at LMP1, there’s two Toyotas, two Porsches, two Audis, all with three drivers each which makes 18 spaces for paid, professional contracts with manufacturers, which is almost the whole F1 grid. And we all know that not the whole F1 grid gets paid...

“It was certainly a good move for me to come into sportscars at this time; I’ve got a really good opportunity this year with Jota and hopefully I can make a name for myself this year. If I do a good job it will bode well for the future.”

A key mover in Tincknell’s switch to sportscars, a man familiar to both the Formula One and sportscar paddocks, knows this truth only too well. Allan McNish’s three wins at Le Mans, three ALMS titles and finally, the coveted World championship achieved last year before retiring from competition aged 44, would suggest that he is about as qualified as anyone can be to advise a young driver making his next career steps. Accordingly, the Scot has been a huge asset to Tincknell in his mentor role.

“He’s proven to be an invaluable contact to speak to for advice on all aspects of motorsport,” Tincknell says. “His influence and his knowledge of the single-seater world is obviously very vast but in sportscars it’s absolutely invaluable, he really is the man that everyone will listen to and have a lot of respect for.  He’s been there, done it and got the T-shirt in sportscars, he knows what it takes to win Le Mans, and win championships. He can pass that advice down to me and I try to take as much of it on board as I can.”

Tincknell's foray into sportscars comes with British
outfit Jota Sport in the ELMS. (Credit: Harry Tincknell)

Tincknell will be the first to admit that there is much to learn for a newcomer to endurance racing – which requires a wholly different mindset as the skill of driving flat-out is combined with tyre and engine management to preserve the machinery for the next stint – but is optimistic that while there is much to get used to, with McNish’s experience to draw on, these vital tools in a sportscar racer’s armoury will soon be mastered.

“Certainly this year there’s going to be lots of new challenges in terms of dealing with traffic, fuel saving and all of the different complexities that the sport throws up, so hopefully I can have a head start on some of the other rookies because I’ve got his number in my phone," he says.  “Formula 3 is more of a twenty lap sprint, where once the car is on the grid, that’s it, there’s nothing more that can be done and it’s down to you and you only, where in the sportscars there’s a lot more strategy involved and a very complex car you need to look after; you’ve got traction control and power steering, with engine management and everything like that. 

“It’s certainly much more of a team game and a longer game than in the single-seaters, where there’s the 70/30 moves you have to go for because you might only get that chance to move forward once a race. In sportscars you know you’ve got a four hour race, you’re going to be doing a lot more overtaking and the guys on the pitwall are having to devise a strategy as you go along, pitstops have to work like clockwork and everything like that. Obviously you’ve still got to be fast over a single lap, consistent and not shunt the car or anything like that, but there’s lots of added stuff!”

Another important change Tincknell faces is the elevated importance of his team-mates; far from enemy number one, the impetus is placed heavily on cooperation in endurance racing, with data sharing paramount to the success of the team.  And with ever-improving silver Simon Dolan, fellow sportscar convert Filipe Albuquerque brought in from Audi’s DTM squad, combined with the proven Zytek-Nissan package, the Jota team is sure to feature at the sharp end in 2014.

Tincknell is joined by Simon Dolan and Audi's Filipe
Albuquerque for his ELMS assault. (Credit: Harry Tincknell)

“In single-seaters the number one aim obviously has to be to beat your team-mate because they’re the only ones with exactly the same car and the same engine as you, so you might keep a little bit back for yourself, but in sportscars you’ve got to work with your team-mates as much as possible because it’s very much in your interests for them to be as quick as you or faster. We don’t know exactly what the lineups are going to be but you’ve got to say we’ll be one of the stronger ones,” Tincknell predicts.  

“Simon is a very quick silver driver, as quick as some of the golds on occasion and Filipe is going to be one of the top platinums out there, he’s going to bring a wealth of knowledge and he’ll be a great benchmark to see how we’re doing. With the addition of a third driver and an extra hour onto the race it certainly throws up more opportunities to be clever with the strategy and the engineers are going to have a bit more on their plate than last year because essentially you had two races, the professional driver in one half and the amateur in the other, where now you can mix it up a bit more. It’s going to be interesting come Silverstone to see what everyone does, but we’re comparing well already and it’s good that we’ve got our line-up sorted early; we know what we’re doing and we can start preparing.”

Tincknell will also have the big daddy of sportscar racing, Le Mans, to look ahead to, with Sam Hignett’s team securing one of the 56 prized entry slots to the great race for the fourth year in succession.  Preparations are already underway, with Audi-contracted Marc Gene – a winner of the 24-hours in 2009 – set to join the team and for Tincknell, who has never before experienced La Sarthe, the dreams are beginning to take shape.

“As I understand it’s an incredible atmosphere, it’s going to be amazing,” he says excitedly. “It will be my first time doing a race of that length, so it’s certainly going to be a new experience for me. I’ll just have to use the test day a couple of weeks before to gain as much knowledge as I can. We’ll be on the simulator and stuff like that to prepare as well as we can, although you’re never going to be totally ready for it the first time.  I’ll do the best I can and obviously spend a lot of time with Allan beforehand; he’s has been there a couple of times and done quite well, so I’ve heard…”