Toyota driver Mike Conway has conceded that there are “nonetheless a number of unknowns” forward of his return to the cockpit at this weekend’s Interlagos World Endurance Championship spherical.
The Briton harassed that solely after his first laps in opening free follow on Friday morning forward of the Sao Paolo 6 Hours will he have the ultimate validation of his health as he recovers from the accidents that dominated him out of final month’s Le Mans 24 Hours.
“I’ve ticked quite a lot of the packing containers and the subsequent one is sitting within the automotive — clearly it’s nonetheless an unknown,” he mentioned.
“It feels alright doing the motive force adjustments, even after they drop the automotive. I really feel good and I’m hopeful.”
Conway broke his proper collarbone, which required surgical procedure, and fractured two ribs in a biking accident three days forward of the Le Mans Check Day in June.
His restoration schedule precluded him getting some laps in a racing automotive forward of his return to the line-up of the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar alongside Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries.
“I didn’t actually wish to: with the scheduled we had — and it was a good schedule to get again in — I didn’t wish to set myself again by getting in one thing too early,” he defined.
Conway has been within the Toyota simulator earlier than and after the confirmation that he would be in the car for Interlagos final Friday.
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 – Hybrid: Mike Conway
Picture by: Toyota
He revealed that he nonetheless felt ache “right here and there” and remains to be “a bit nonetheless a bit stiff within the mornings”.
He additionally defined that the anticlockwise Autodromo Jose Carlos Tempo will put extra stress on his injured shoulder than a standard clockwise circuit.
“The appropriate arm has received extra work to do round right here,” he defined.
“There are quite a lot of left-hand corners; it might have been good to go to a observe with extra right-handers.”
Ought to Conway encounter issues that stop him from racing this weekend, the #7 Toyota would go into Sunday’s six-hour occasion with a two-driver crew.
Ritomo Miyata, Toyota’s official reserve driver, just isn’t current in Brazil.
Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury defined that it was by no means the plan to convey Miyata into the line-up at one of many six-hour races within the occasion of the withdrawal of considered one of its common crew.
Miyata was missed for the Le Mans double-points WEC spherical after Conway’s accident.
Toyota instead recalled Jose Maria Lopez, who has been changed within the Japanese producer’s Hypercar class squad by de Vries for this season.
The Argentinian driver moved over from Toyota sister marque Lexus’s WEC LMGT3 class consultant, Auto Sport Promotion, with which he’s contesting the total collection in considered one of its pair of RC F GT3s.
Free follow for Sunday’s Sao Paolo 6 Hours, spherical 5 of the 2024 WEC, begins at 10:45 native time on Friday.