The season of the three #7 Toyota drivers has been full of surprises. ‘Pechito’ López’s accident at Sebring caused the reigning WEC champions to begin their title defense with a crossed foot. Although Mike Conway, ‘Pechito’ López and Kamui Kobayashi were able to win the 6 Hours of Spa, In the queen event of the WEC things did not go as expected either. It is true that they finished second, but also that they could not put up a fight against their teammates in the #8 Toyota.
To add insult to injury, Conway, ‘Pechito’ and Kobayashi did not achieve the expected result in Monza either, since the Japanese collided with the #36 Alpine in the middle of the straight when they were fighting for victory. As a result of this mishap and the subsequent 90-second penalty, the #7 Toyota finished in third position, a result that leaves the three drivers with 76 points. The difference with André Negrao, Matthieu Vaxivière and Nico Lapierre -Alpine #36- is 30 unitswhen there are 63 points left in play.
For this reason, Mike Conway assures that the title options of the drivers of the Toyota #7 go through winning in Fuji and that only with this result can they maintain the hope of revalidating the title they achieved in 2021: «After Fuji we will clearly know what our role will be in Bahrain. We are still in the fight for the title, everything is wide open. Of course, it depends on what happens with the other cars. We need to be strong and we need to win at Fuji. Any other result leaves us against a rock and a hard place.”
Analyzing the options drawn from the results of the 6 Hours of Fuji, Conway adds: “If we get the win and our teammates in the #8 Toyota finish second, with Alpine third, there will still be a really big points gap. to try to get it back. It’s an unfortunate situation, but we lost a lot of points at the beginning of the season. and that has harmed us. On the contrary, Alpine has been very strong and consistent. The #8 Toyota had bad luck retiring at Spa and that’s why they’re also behind.”
Summing up, Mike Conway adds: “All we can do is try to maximize our options every weekend.. That happens to win in Fuji and see what happens. If someone like that arrives in Bahrain in a distant position and the #8 Toyota needs help to win the title, we are a team and we have to seek everyone’s benefit. Doing it in Japan would be too soon, there we will compete to get the best possible result and then we will see what Bahrain brings. I think we are going to have a better performance than in Monza.”
Photos: Toyota Gazoo Racing