HARRY TINCKNELL
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Appreciate the team around you – Petit Le Mans, IMSA SportsCar Championship, 2021
I had been competing in the US with Mazda for four years and this was the last ever race in their program. We won it with a pass with 40 minutes to go and for me it was like scoring the winning goal at Wembley! It was a really poignant moment, the end of an era. Everyone was moving on to different things and I have never seen so many grown men and women crying than I did at the end of that race.
I think sometimes as a driver, it is easy to lose touch with how much everyone else in the team cares. You can get lost in your own world, focusing on driving as fast as you can – and that is important, but seeing how much it meant to the team reminded me how much hard work they put in and how important it is to let the engineers, mechanics, truckies, people in hospitality, everyone in the team, know how grateful I am for everything they do.
Ignite Media / Newspress
The Mazda team celebrate a win at Watkins Glen
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Your team-mate is your ally – Shanghai, FIA World Endurance Championship, 2016
I was racing a Ford GT with Andy Priaulx in the LMGTE Pro class and after winning the previous race in Japan, we arrived in China and found ourselves really struggling in practice. We didn’ t feel the car was working well so we went back to the hotel room with the video and data and worked together until midnight, trying to understand what was going wrong and what we needed to do to improve.
I was a young driver at the time and in other partnerships, where you don’ t work well together, you would probably go your separate ways from the track and look at things yourselves. In this case, though, Andy was so open, and we worked through the challenge together. He was pivotal in helping me become someone who can develop a car and lead a team, and that was so useful for me in that part of my career.
That race taught me that when you are working with a team-mate – as people do in many forms of motorsport – you must keep in mind that making the car go quicker is the most important thing. Pooling ideas and working hard together doesn’ t come naturally to a racing driver because we have grown up for so long with our teammate as the number one person to beat, but we ended up turning the weekend around and winning the race.
Even in single seaters, from a set-up perspective, unless you are absolutely dominating, it is narrow-minded to think you’ re always going to have everything optimised. There’ s going to be times where you’ re in the sweet spot … and times where you need help … so it is good to have that rounded mindset of needing to give a little to receive a little. That obviously comes with a bit of mental fortitude, but it’ s what you need if you’ re going to get to the top.
You don’ t want to be that person that closes yourself off. You want to be a team player, and now I am a bit older and generally have younger teammates, I am always trying to provide help and support.
Revolution- September 2025
JEP
Tincknell partnered with Andy Priaulx in the Ford GT
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