The British drivers seeking outright Le Mans glory after past class triumphs

Harry Tincknell

When Harry Tincknell was about to walk out onto the podium after winning LMP2 at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 2014, he received some sage advice from his manager, Allan McNish: “Be prepared for the best view in the world.”

Those words from a three-time Le Mans winner didn’t ready a raw 22-year-old Le Mans debutant for the scenes he was about to witness.

“You go out there on the podium over the pitlane, and it’s like being a rock star on stage at Wembley Stadium,” recalls Tincknell, who had just taken class honours aboard the Jota Zytek-Nissan Z11SN shared with Oliver Turvey and Simon Dolan.

“There are people as far as the eye can see on the track. The view is insane, mindblowing.

“I don’t normally do emotion, but I get emotional even today when I think about it. It took me a couple of years to realise what a big achievement it was. You need to have the odd disaster to put it into context. For me that was LMP1 with Nissan in 2015.”

Tincknell revelled in the “mindblowing” view from the podium in 2014

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham / Getty Images

The next time Tincknell climbed onto the top step of the Le Mans podium, the experience was rather different. He was drafted into the Aston Martin Racing line-up to drive a Vantage GTE with Alex Lynn and Maxime Martin in 2020, the year that Le Mans was pushed back until September as a result of the COVID pandemic and took place in front of empty grandstands.

“It was certainly different: up on the podium, you could hear the singular claps of our mechanics down below,” he remembers.

“The whole experience wasn’t as good as thousands of people cheering, but the euphoria was the same.” 

Tincknell now has a chance to add an overall victory to his Le Mans CV with Aston and The Heart of Racing squad, driving a Valkyrie Le Mans Hypercar alongside Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn.

“LMP2 then GTE Pro, so now I’ve got to do it overall,” he reckons. “No one has ever won those three classes at Le Mans, so I’d better put that right.”

2014 LMP2 win Jota Zytek
2020 GTE Pro win Aston Martin Racing

2025 Hypercar Aston Martin THOR Team

It’s the ride of the Valkyrie for Tincknell in 2025

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Phil Hanson

The photos tell their own story. Phil Hanson and his team-mates at United Autosports, with whom he’s just won LMP2 at Le Mans in 2020, are wearing masks in the year when COVID resulted in a very different atmosphere.

“I wish I could have taken the mask off on the podium, but at the time it was taken very seriously,” reflects Hanson, who won Le Mans at the fourth time of asking, sharing his United ORECA-Gibson 07 with fellow Brit Paul di Resta and Filipe Albuquerque.

“I’d loved to have had the normal Le Mans victory experience with all the fans. Even when I got home, me and my friends had to cut short our celebrations because there was a midnight curfew.

“But I was happy to take it regardless of the situation: you don’t know how many times Le Mans is going to look on you unfavourably.”

Hanson missed the “normal” experience in 2020 on the LMP2 podium

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Le Mans didn’t favour Hanson in the years following 2020 before his move in 2024 to Hypercar in one of Jota’s customer Porsche 963 LMDhs.

“Hypercar was always the goal from the moment it was announced and what I did in P2 got me here,” explains Hanson, who has moved to the Ferrari 499P LMH run as a customer entry by AF Corse, sharing with Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye.

“If I were to win overall, it will be interesting to see if I feel like I’ve won it for the first time or the second. 

“Back in 2020, LMP2 didn’t feel any less significant, because to my mind it was the most competitive class. Maybe it will feel like the bigger achievement.

“The only thing I know is that we won’t have the curse of having to wear masks.”

2020 LMP2 win United ORECA

2025 Hypercar AF Corse

Hypercars was “always the goal” for Hanson

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Alex Lynn

Alex Lynn knows all about standing on the Le Mans podium. He’s been up there as a class winner and as a top-three finisher overall. The emotions he experienced were quite different.

His 2020 GTE Pro victory with Aston Martin together with Harry Tincknell and Maxime Martin stands as one of the highlights of his career, the absence of a crowd or no.

“A win is a win, it didn’t matter there were no fans,” he asserts. “That was the most complete drive of my career. Sometimes you feel at one with the car, and that was a year when the car was there for me every corner of every lap.”

Three years later Lynn, now as a Cadillac driver, finished third in Hypercar at Le Mans with Earl Bamber and Richard Westbrook in year one of the General Motors marque’s V-Series.R programme. He learned that being up on the podium brings the failure to win into focus.

Lynn’s 2020 class win contrasts with his later overall podium

Photo by: JEP

“You are a metre away from the winners wearing the [Rolex Daytona] watch, but you are a million miles away in terms of emotion,” states Lynn.

“You look at the guys next to you and think you want to be them next time. That’s what keeps the hunger high.” 

That hunger is driving both Lynn and Jota, which has taken over Cadillac’s WEC programme from the Ganassi team for 2025, in pursuit of overall Le Mans victory this year.

“We know that this car can win the 24 Hours and I know how special it’s going to be if we do it,” says Lynn, who is teamed with Will Stevens and Norman Nato.

“That’s why we are pushing so hard at Cadillac and Jota, and for me as the driver it’s what drives you to do everything possible to try to win, that little bit extra in the gym or whatever.”

2020 GTE Pro win Aston Martin Racing

2025 Hypercar Cadillac Hertz Team Jota

Lynn’s Aston Martin Vantage took the flag in 2020, and now he has overall glory in his sights with Jota-run Caddy

Photo by: Alexander Trienitz

Will Stevens 

For Will Stevens, the Le Mans podium has become almost a home from home: he’s been up there four times in nine starts, beginning with a second-place finish in LMP2 on his debut in 2016. 

“As soon as I did my first Le Mans in 2016, it became something I knew I wanted to win, not only in category, but also overall,” recalls Stevens.

“The podium is one of the things that makes Le Mans unique. The way you look down on all the people makes it all very rock and roll.”

Stevens is in a unique position among the Brits going for gold this year to compare and contrast the full experience of winning in the different classes.

“I know from winning in GTE Am in 2017 that people start to drift off a bit,” he points out. “There were definitely more people down there when I won in P2 because the podium is slightly earlier.” 

LMP2 worked as a shop window for Hypercar hopefuls

Photo by: JEP / Getty Images

The win in GTE Am aboard JMW Motorsport’s Ferrari 488 GTE with Dries Vanthoor and Rob Smith whetted his appetite for more victories. He became a stalwart of the P2 class at Le Mans and beyond, but started to wonder whether the victory he craved would ever come.

“I was always in a car that, if we had a good race, could win,” he says. That made victory with Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez in a Jota ORECA in 2022 “all the sweeter”.

Stevens’s stint in LMP2 coincided with a time when the talent in class all had an eye on what was to come in Hypercar.

“We were all trying to prove ourselves,” he reflects. “Le Mans was critical because we knew the manufacturers were looking at what we could do in the biggest races.”

Stevens made the move to the WEC top class with Jota in 2023 when it got its hands on the first customer Porsche 963 LMDh to race. He has now moved over with the team with Cadillac.

“Now I’ve done it in two different categories, I need to tick off the overall,” he declares. “I’m going to do what it takes to make it happen.”

2017 GTE Am win JMW Ferrari
2022 LMP2 win Jota ORECA

2025 Hypercar Cadillac Hertz Team Jota

Stevens’s Jota squad now fields the Cadillac V-Series.R

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Paul di Resta

“I guess the only thing you can say about it is that there will only ever be one year like it,” smiles Paul di Resta who, like team-mate Phil Hanson, celebrated LMP2 victory in 2020 in the strange circumstances of the COVID-hit edition.

“It was odd with no crowd, but as a team it didn’t change how we approached the race and took nothing away from the achievement.

“The end of the race at Le Mans is an emotional time, even if you haven’t been successful. You and everyone within the team has poured your heart into it.

“The comedown is quite big, and it’s definitely easier if you are dripping in champagne. Standing up there on the podium looking down on all the fans must lift you to another level.”

Di Resta reckons champagne helps with the emotional comedown

Photo by: Motorsport Images

Tentative talks with Peugeot about joining its LMH programme had begun before the P2 victory. “It was after then that I really got into discussions,” recalls di Resta, who shares his Peugeot 9X8 2024 LMH with Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne.

“It was about that time that we all realised Hypercar was going to be something big.

“I signed up with Peugeot to join a manufacturer with a winning mentality to try to win Le Mans overall. I know that the team is ready, but so much depends on whether you’ve got the car under you, and we won’t know that until we get there.

“To win the biggest race in the world as part of a French team would be massive.”

2020 LMP2 win United ORECA

2025 Hypercar Peugeot TotalEnergies

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Di Resta picked Peugeot for its “winning mentality”

Photo by: Andreas Beil