Mike Conway: Le Mans win is "hard to put into words"

2026 saw Toyota win Le Mans for the sixth time, and break Ferraris streak | Credit: Evan Roberts

You'd think Mike Conway is used to the Le Mans podium, from 2016 to 2022 he picked up one third, four seconds and a win, but this time its different. Toyota have experienced a trough of results since the bulk of the Hypercar manufacturers arrived in 2024 and Conway has had questions raised over the security of his seat in the Toyota TR010 Hybrid.

Toyota built a new car for the 2026 season to cope with the increasing competitiveness of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) Hypercar class, and they came out the blocks swinging. The No.8 Toyota stole the win in the opening round, at the 6 Hours of Imola, from Ferrari, who have unexpectedly been beaten by their Formula One counterparts in the race to be the first division of the Scuderia to win a race in 2026.

Conway and the No.7 car finished third at the 6 Hours of Imola, but got the better of the sister car at Spa, finishing fifth while the No.8 was 10th.

Approaching Le Mans, the No.7 car was fourth in the Championship, but an excellent win has catapulted the drivers of the car to first place, four points ahead of the No.20 BMW and 19 points ahead of their teammates.

Conway said: "It's hard to put into words. To win here is always incredible because it's such a tough race, and our opposition was super tough as well. There were moments where every competitor was strong."

The competitors in question are the Cadillacs and BMWs, plus the other Toyota. While Toyota kept both cars in the fight, the Cadillac and BMW had their hands tied behind their back as they each lost a competitor before the sun rose. In fact, BMW lost the No.15 car before the sun even set, as it picked up a puncture during contact with an LMP2 car in the Porsche Curves, and never recovered.

The No.38 Cadillac led the race for a long duration, but had to retire in the early hours of the morning when its power steering failed. This left the No.8 Toyota, No.12 Cadillac and No.20 BMW in the top three positions, with the No.7 a few minutes behind in fourth, having lost some time over night.

Toyota started nearer to the back than they would have liked, but many suspected their car was setup solely for race pace | Credit: WEC

The Toyotas were in this position despite the fact they started in 14th and 15th, because of a clever strategy decision to pit them both in the first 30 minutes of the race. This worked for two reasons: firstly as the Toyota still had a lot of fuel on board, they did not have to spend so much time refuelling the car so they had a shorter stop.

Secondly, the clean air allowed Toyota to avoid conflict and exercise their race pace, while their competitors squabbled at the front of the pack.

The No.7 was keeping the pace with the leaders in the morning, but needed some fortune to be brought back into contention. Three quarters of the way through the race one of the LMGT3 Porsche's prompted a safety car by hitting the wall. The No.7 took the opportunity to get back into the lead group, and were leading the race with an hour to go.

Toyota veteran, and team principal, Kamui Kobayashi drove excellently to preserve a dwindling fuel supply and make the chequered flag first, despite the charging BMW of Robin Frijns behind him. Conway reflected: "I think even until the last two or three hours, we didn't really know what was going to happen. Robin [Frijns] made it super-tense for the last 30 minutes."

"I think Nyck [de Vries] was closing his eyes for the last hour and hiding. I was pacing around in the drivers’ room and had about 15 toilet breaks in the last 30 minutes! But we got through it, we did the job and we’re here. It was an amazing effort, so huge credit to everybody involved.”

The Le Mans victory has now promoted Conway, Kobayashi and de Vries to the lead of the WEC Drivers' Championship. Conway and Kobayashi have each won the Championship before, as teammates, in 2020 and 2021, but this is new ground for de Vries, who joined the team in 2024. Regardless, the Dutch driver is no stranger to leading championships as he has previously been victorious in Formula E.

Unusually, it's hard to know how many races are left in the WEC season, due to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East, but if the calendar remains unchanged then there will be five races left for the No.7 crew to defend their Championship lead.