Mike Conway and his teammates, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, fought through the field with a perfect performance and looked set to win the Lone Star Le Mans. However, a controversial late penalty for a yellow flag incident changed the race result and left the #7 GR010 HYBRID crew second.
The team bounced back from a difficult qualifying which left Mike with a ninth-place starting position for the 6-hour race at the Circuit of the Americas. Mike survived contact on the opening lap to move up the field, which included a spectacular overtake on lap eight when he passed two cars in one manoeuvre to take sixth place.
Mike’s outstanding pace moved him into the podium fight and he was sixth, just a few seconds away from third, heading into the first pit stops at the one-hour mark where he handed the car over to Nyck de Vries.
The hot conditions took their toll on some Hypercar rivals and, when Mike returned to the wheel early in the third hour, the #7 was in second thanks to a storming stint from Nyck. As half distance approached, Mike increased the pace, setting a new fastest lap as he closed on the leading #83 Ferrari.
At half distance, Nyck was back in the car and running in second place as he closed to the rear of the leader midway through the fourth hour.
An aggressive strategy call brought the #7 into the pits slightly early at the end of the fourth hour, giving Kamui Kobayashi clear air and a chance to take the lead. That paid off when the #83 emerged from its own pit stop a lap later, two seconds behind Kamui.
After a final pit stop, Kamui was comfortably clear at the front until, with 40 minutes remaining, a race-deciding drive-through penalty – when stewards judged he did not respond appropriately to a yellow flag –dropped him to second, nine seconds behind the #83 Ferrari. The controversial call was extremely harsh on the #7 crew as the team’s data indicated the incident had been repeated by its direct competitors who went unpunished.
Kamui pushed hard to recover the time lost, not helped by a full course yellow, but fell just short and he crossed the line in second, just 1.780secs behind the winning #83 Ferrari in front of more than 65,000 fans.
The result means Mike now moves up to 4th in the Drivers' World Championship standings - with his #7 teammates occupying 2nd - with TOYOTA GAZOO Racing moving into the lead of the FIA WEC Manufacturers’ World Championship! With two rounds remaining, Mike's campaign resumes with TOYOTA's home race, the 6 Hours of Fuji, on 15 September, before the season finale in Bahrain on 2 November.
Mike Conway:
“Coming into the race we didn’t feel like we had a chance of winning but as the race evolved we had strong pace; every stint we seemed to be gaining with good tyre wear and consistency. We ended up in a fight and we thought we were going to win, but unfortunately the penalty killed our chance, although Kamui fought all the way to the end. It was a great job by everyone, from the engineers, the pit crew and my team-mates. The result is better than expected and we scored good points for the championship so we will keep pushing and go to Fuji hoping for a positive result.”
