Jota Sport sensationally announced the return of Harry Tincknell yesterday to contest the European Le Mans Series this year.

The 23-year-old will contest all five ELMS races this season alongside Simon Dolan and Felipe Albuquerque, reuniting the successful team from 2014 who missed out on the title by four points.

Tincknell has been given permission by Nissan NISMO to race the LM P2 class JOTA Sport Gibson 015S-Nissan in ELMS alongside his FIA World Endurance Championship commitments for the factory team. Harry had been due to debut the radical Nissan GT-R LM NISMO in the WEC opener at Silverstone this month. But Nissan NISMO announced recently that it would delay the car’s debut until the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

He will now compete at Silverstone over the same weekend in the first round of the ELMS, the 4 Hours of Silverstone, staged on Saturday 11 April. Although the Nissan GT-R LM NISMO will not race at Silverstone, Tincknell will be attendance on the day of the WEC race (12 Apr) with his NISMO team-mates to meet fans and the media.

Tincknell joined Dolan and Albuquerque in reacquainting himself with the rebranded Gibson in an official ELMS test at Paul Ricard in Southern France last week (23 March). It was the first time Harry had driven the car since the 2014 ELMS finale at Estoril last October. The JOTA trio, which scored three podiums – including one win – and four pole-positions in ELMS last season, completed over 1,000-miles over the two days in a mixture of weather conditions at Ricard. Tincknell only drove on the first day before leaving for America for a Nissan NISMO test.

Speaking his return to Jota Sport, Harry said: “Firstly, I’m very grateful to Nissan NISMO for allowing me to undertake the ELMS programme with JOTA Sport alongside my commitments for NISMO in the FIA World Endurance Championship.

“Of course my sincere thanks goes to JOTA for the unexpected call-up. I’m really excited to be re-united with the ‘#Mighty38’ in ELMS for a second consecutive season. As a team we work well together and it’s a great opportunity for me to get more sportscar mileage under my belt.

“The JOTA and Gibson guys have worked really hard on the car over the winter and new updates feel strong while we know the NISMO engine is the strongest out there in LMP2. Simon has been doing really well in winter testing and it’s great to be back with Filipe. We’ll all push each other forward again this season and I’m sure if we keep our hard working approach we can achieve great things this season.”