CHAMPIONSHIP LEADER TINCKNELL FOCUSSED ON SECOND ELMS VICTORY
Harry Tincknell heads for Italy and the second round of the European Le Mans Series at Imola on Sunday (15 May) aiming to score two firsts. Harry, who won the opening 4 Hours of Silverstone with co-drivers Simon Dolan and Giedo van der Garde last month, has been competing in the ELMS for the past two years and just missed out on the Driver's title in both 2014 & '15.
And despite achieving an impressive tally of seven top-three placings from 10 ELMS races, the 24-year-old Briton has not scored more than one ELMS race win each year a fact Tincknell is aiming to change in this year's 4 Hours of Imola. Harry dominated the corresponding race at Imola in 2014 with a win and fastest race lap on his debut at the historic 3.04-mile Italian track. Last year, coming off a fantastic FIA World Endurance Championship class triumph at Spa-Francorchamps, Tincknell looked set for another Imola victory having handed the car over to Dolan with a 42secs lead with 90mins run. But a wayward Ferrari contacted Dolan's Gibson, damaging the car's nose section necessitating in a pit-stop for repairs, resulting in a third place finish.
Last month, the JOTA Sport operated G-Drive Racing Gibson 015S-Nissan LMP2 class sports car of Tincknell/Dolan/van der Garde scored a comfortable victory in the weather affected Silverstone opener. Imola action features free practice sessions on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning preceding qualifying (1430-1440 local). The race begins at 1400 on Sunday.
Harry says: "We arrive at Imola off the back of an excellent opening race at Silverstone and as the championship leaders. But even though we won, we still have a lot of potential to unlock which is very exciting. We tested at Imola pre-season and that went very well so there is no reason we cannot achieve a similar result and break our duck of getting more than one win during a season. The important thing is to keep attacking and build our championship lead rather than being conservative.
"Imola is an old school, tight and twisty track and with over 40 cars on the grid, it's all going to be about traffic management during the race. We've started from pole-position there for the last two years, won and set the race's fastest lap in 2014. We looked set to achieve a second victory last year until Simon was unlucky with the GT class Ferrari. I've had 100% podiums at Imola since my race debut there in 2014."
