Conway Labels Penalty That Cost Toyota COTA Win “Bizarre”

Mike Conway has described the penalty that denied the No. 7 Toyota crew victory in the Lone Star Le Mans round of the FIA World Endurance Championship as “bizarre.”

The Toyota GR010 Hybrid that Conway shares with Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries was looking on course for a second win of the season at the Circuit of The Americas until Kobayashi was handed a drive-through penalty with 45 minutes to go.

That dropped Kobayashi to second behind the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Shwartzman, and the Japanese driver fell 1.780 seconds shy of wresting back the win.

The penalty was awarded for Kobayashi ignoring yellow flags at Turn 11, where the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 had parked up with a terminal problem with around two hours to go.

While happy to have made up ground from ninth on the grid with a stronger-than-expected performance from Toyota, Conway said he struggled to understand why Kobayashi had been penalized.

“Coming into the race, we really didn’t know where we would finish,” reflected Conway. “I was thinking top-five would be good, maybe a podium. But as the race evolved, our pace seemed to get better as the track gripped up.

“We found ourselves in the lead and I thought we should have had this one. It was just unfortunate with the yellow flag.

“I need to review it, but it seemed a bit weird why we got the penalty. It seemed like a single waved yellow, and it was for a car parked on the left-hand side. To lift in a straight line… it just seems bizarre. That killed the win, really.

“Kamui tried really hard to claw back the win and did well to get back to two seconds, but that was it.

“Everybody did a good job, pit crew, drivers, the pit wall made some good calls and that really brought us in the fight. Happy to do that because we came into it not thinking we could [fight for victory].”

Conway described the turnaround in Toyota’s fortunes from qualifying as “amazing” but felt that an inability to get more than one lap out of the tires on Saturday was partially to blame for the two GR010 Hybrids qualifying down the order.

“In qualifying, we only had one lap on the tires and we were getting degradation, so we couldn’t push for more,” explained Conway. “Others seemed to have an easier time, they could get more laps out of it, which we couldn’t do.

“Just with the track gripping up, it made our tire management easier.”

Both Toyotas stayed on the Medium compound for the entire race unlike the No. 83 Ferrari, which used the Hard tire at various points.

“Car No. 8 tried the Hard at the beginning of the weekend and it was clear it wasn’t going to work for us,” Conway added. “We saw Ferrari, especially the No. 83, ran hards on the right-hand side, but we didn’t need to run it.

“The Medium was working well: good grip and the deg was quite good. In traffic we were definitely losing grip, but it was the same for everyone.”

Second place at COTA means Conway’s co-drivers Kobayashi and de Vries are now equal-second in the championship with the No. 50 Ferrari crew, which finished third, and 12 points down on the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport drivers.

With Toyota’s home race at Fuji up next, Conway said he hopes to close the gap further at the Japanese venue.

“It’s been a good race for us in the past,” he said. “We are still lacking in some areas, in sector one we were slow because of the way things are. We don’t get off the corners well. Let’s see, but I hope Fuji will be good for us again.”