Mike Conway: The Best of Both Worlds

Mike Conway is enjoying his racing once again. Having come to the difficult decision in 2012 that he felt uncomfortable racing on ovals, the Englishman nowadays races to his strengths, with a road and street course-only programme that has allowed him to explore endurance racing while also keeping his hand in open-wheel, an arrangement which offers the best of both worlds.

Conway took to sportscars like a duck to water last year with Delta-ADR and was instrumental in the team taking four wins from the last five races of the World Endurance Championship, only narrowly missing out on the LMP2 crown. Not surprisingly, Conway’s stellar form caught the attentions of Toyota, who rewarded his efforts with a factory contract as the team’s test and reserve driver.  

All the while, Conway has continued to find success on the other side of the Atlantic and reignited his IndyCar career. After reminding everyone of his pace in a brilliant one-off outing at Detroit for minnows Dale Coyne Racing – “it was just one of those fairy-tale weekends, where I only got the call last minute, jumped in, won the race then went back to the WEC the next weekend after” – Conway landed at Ed Carpenter’s single-car ECR outfit, surviving a multi-car pileup to win Long Beach for the second time in his career and see his name added to the illustrious list of multiple winners that includes Andretti, Unser, Tracy, Zanardi and Bourdais.

Conway with team-owner Ed Carpenter in Victory Lane
at Long Beach earlier this month. (Credit: Mike Conway)

All this means Conway has a very busy schedule, but there’s a sense that he has the balance just about right.

“I’m really the only driver that said I didn’t want to do the ovals and just stick to the road and street courses, and I thought that might be the end of my IndyCar career to be honest, but it’s worked out perfectly,” he says. “There’s not many teams that could do that, so I’m very fortunate to be in one that can.

“Last year I really felt like I was enjoying my racing again. That’s what it’s all about and I’d kind of forgotten it a little bit.  Sometimes you put too much pressure on yourself and if things aren’t going right, it can be hard to lift yourself back up and go at it again the next weekend.  That’s why with the ovals it was time to call it a day because I really wasn’t enjoying racing at all, let alone just the oval stuff.”

Conway will tell you that if there was ever a time to sample sportscars, it is most definitely the present. The formation of a World Championship in 2012 for the first time since 1992, the return of Porsche to top-line endurance racing and the arrival of Mark Webber has introduced new audiences to the world beyond Formula One, with more growth expected in the coming years.

But despite the obvious differences between Le Mans and IndyCar, Conway points out that his experience of the former has made him a better all-round racer. His patient approach certainly paid dividends at Long Beach, biding his time and eventually forcing reigning champion Scott Dixon to abandon his fuel-saving run and relinquish the lead with just three laps remaining.

Conway drove an impeccable treble stint en-route to
victory at Interlagos last year. (Credit: Mike Conway)

“It’s a really cool style of racing, I’m surprised I didn’t look at it earlier really, you’re so focused on single-seaters and trying to get to F1,” Conway says of sportscars. “There’s some real longevity here. You’ve got more manufacturers coming in and it’s looking really competitive; this year especially it seems like the level is that bit higher and it looks like more will come in the future.

“I learned a lot last year with the LMP2 racing I did, and I think that’s transferred a lot towards the other racing I’ve done. Le Mans is so different, it’s a great challenge for a racing driver to get to grips with as it’s not just about you in the car; you have to look after it for your team-mates and really look after the tyres. As well you’ve got to be so good in traffic; you’re trying to pass GTs and other P2 cars but at the same time you’re looking in your mirrors for the P1s, which really sharpens you up for anything else you get into afterwards.

“The first stint I did was at night in qualifying, it was tough! All your reference points have gone and you’ve got to re-learn everything. Then when the night is over and the light comes up, the track gets quick, more rubber is going down, there’s a constant evolution of the track, you come away from that place feeling like you’ve learned so much.”

After experiencing the intense pressure of the Month of May in the lead up to the Indianapolis 500, you might have expected Conway to be unfazed when he made his debut at La Sarthe last year. But as he admits, that was far from the case.

“Le Mans was bloody tough!” he grins. “Indy was a whole different challenge, the Month of May was a constant build-up so every day you feel a bit more tension. It’s constant pressure around that place.  You can get bumped out of the field and not make it and I was on the wrong end of that one year in 2011.  It’s hard to describe, there’s no other feeling like that.

Disqualification after finishing third at Le Mans was a low point
in an otherwise excellent debut season. (Credit: Mike Conway)

"But going back to Le Mans, it’s the sheer length of the race that gets you. After the first few stints, you’re thinking ‘it’s not too bad’, but when you start to get to the early hours of the morning and you want to sleep, I couldn’t. It was hard for me to switch off because I wanted to watch the monitors all the time and see what was going on. You feel terrible out of the car, but in the car is when you’re at your best, so you never want to get out!”

Looking forwards, it is unclear whether Conway will get to race the Toyota TS040 Hybrid this year and if so, whether that will be in place of his LMP2 programme with Millennium (nee Delta-ADR), which kicks off at Spa after the team were forced to withdraw from Silverstone. But until that time comes, Conway is simply enjoying being a cog in the factory machine, particularly considering Toyota’s lofty position atop the standings after a 1-2 finish in the Silverstone season opener.

“We’re yet to discuss it really, ideally I’d love to be able to both like I’ve been able to do this year, so we’ll have to wait and see what’s happening. But I’ve really enjoyed working with these boys at Toyota, it’s a lot of fun and the car is just awesome, you factor all the development, new technologies, it’s really cool to be a part of.  It produces a lot of downforce, it stops really well and it’s got big fat tyres on it, so in the slow speed corners it’s really impressive as well.

“If I’m needed I’ll be ready.”