Mike Conway

but the only two crews that can do it are the two TOTA squads.

We go to Monza, and that will be the last race of Mike Conway's career.

It's an 18-point gap, so it is...

It requires the Buemi-Irakawa-Hartley trio to have a problem.

worth once we've finished talking about Barca just kind of do a wrap up of all the driving news because there's been

lots of it let's do that Before we get there, talk about,

because you've just come off of saying it looks like it might be the last race for, we've mentioned Mike Conway coming at the end of his career, Bordet at the end of his time with Cadillac, this current situation with the Cinetech Alpines and a rescue package that perhaps hasn't

happened.

Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa took the victory, the number eight, ahead of their number seven colleagues.

Great run from them to take the one to Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nick DeVries in second place.

It's their eighth WEC Manufacturers title.

And it guarantees that only its two driver crews remain in contention for the driver's trophy at the season finale in Monza.

Thank you so much.

Alex Riberas in the 009 Aston Martin Valkyrie joined by just Marco Sorensen as mentioned the two Aston Martins have chosen to stick with the two driver line-ups and also doing that the two Alpines 35 and 36 with respectively Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Hapsburg and on the other side of the garage Jules Gounon and Victor Martins the driver's signing session was very lively earlier on with a number of outgoing drivers of course a chance to catch a final signature from people like mike conway who's choosing to retire from the sport at the end of the season but wouldn't it be a great way to go out with a manufacturer's title for toyota and a driver's title for car seven they've got a bit of catching up to do but it's only 10 points that the seven trio trail the number eight gang who were winners last time out, as mentioned.

So they gained an extra seven points on, well, at least a few others.

So Brendan Hartley, Rio Hirakawa and Sebastian Buemi lead the Drivers' Championship on 89 points.

So softs all around, effectively, apart from the rear left, whereas Toyota are going fully soft, and the wheel guns are in position for those tyres that sit on the ground right now.

The fuel's going in, and the reason why the tyre change cannot commence until the fuel nozzle is released is that's what the regulations say, the two duties in the pits cannot overlap.

so fuel nozzle will be pinged from the side of the number eight car they presumably have already served that extra five seconds which if you weren't aware it was five extra seconds added to the next pit stop which is this one for Buemi because of a start procedure which is strange because he actually lost the position to the Genesis but I wonder whether he changed location on the grid i.e. jinked well to the right before those lights had gone out and you have to stay in formation until racing begins anyway that five seconds hopefully has now been served and that will result in once Nick de Vries has made his pit stop in all things being equal Nick leading in car number seven and in now comes Nick de Vries a lap later so the eight cars pit stop is done they did do a driver change there though as well so Brendan Hartley taking over 50 Ferrari rejoining now in the hands of Niklas Nielsen he takes charge away from Miguel Molina and the Ferrari is in eighth position at the moment but with cars ahead still to pit it will be Nick de Vries to get out of the Toyota and Mike Conway to get in for one of his final runs this year and indeed ever in motorsport he'll feature of course at Monza they've got a championship to try and win the 007 Aston Martin is all over the road as it has taken slick tyres but with no tyre warmers permitted of course so on a very cold racetrack it's only 19 degrees track temperature 15 in the air but yes Harry Ticknell really struggling there to get any sort of forward momentum because the car was wanting to snap away from him at all those possible moments actually that was Riberas wasn't it in the 009

Imagine that, a normally aspirated V12, the throttle response and the power and the torque trying to manage that is pretty tricky indeed.

gleaning five points but he wasn't in the strongest car in fairness but those Le Mans that Le Mans success will certainly stand Blundell in good stead moving forward he finished first in 1992 in the Peugeot Talbot Sport 905 with Derek Warwick and Yannick Dalmas third position in class the following year in 1995 in the McLaren F1 GTR Was that a surprise PMAC to you that Conway is going to step away entirely from motor racing?

That's a good point I've been thinking a bit about it over the last few days you know because this has been talked about openly for quite a while now that Mike Conway was not going to be continuing with Toyota now what I didn't quite realize or appreciate was that it was because that was his choice to step away and I did think if he wasn't stepping away it would be strange to swap him out of the team but it's good that he's making that decision on his own terms and I think that's what every driver would want to do is when they decide that they've They've had enough.

That's it.

And the schedule of a professional driver is really, really tough.

Honestly, it's very hard to read here in Barcelona.

Degradation is playing a massive role and never know what tires is everyone on so uh but yeah if that is how it looks like from outside it's always always good to see it shows you that uh it's probably in the right direction

Daniel Gudea, Genesis, making the point that the 19 car hasn't scored any points yet, but it'd be interesting to track back through various points of the previous races, because they have been in the points, they've had the pace to be there, and then whether that be strategy or just being slightly out of sync with those that ultimately... go on to win the race but yeah they've been mixing it in the right kind of places and many down at Genesis including Cyril Abitbol saying we are actually ahead of schedule you know we had expectations we're kind of exceeding them already but it would be very nice to be able to score points with both cars if that's possible before the season is out talking about near misses though the 7 Toyota which has just come into the pit lane for Mike Conway to take over Kota where they were winning they were leading that race and comfortably with Nick de Vries at the wheel and then something failed on the car he ended up in the barrier and had to limp it back to the pit lane but they went from something like a 10-15 second advantage to being out of the race not even able to complete it and kissing goodbye to 25 points and more And that's how quickly a long distance race can turn, sometimes in the final 10 minutes.

And you think about, you know, points paid out in the top 10.

But as you say, I think there is a full clash now with, um, an IndyCar, uh, round, uh, in terms of, of the actual weekend itself.

Um, whilst we're talking about drivers, and while we're talking about top drivers, held this over from last week because I wanted to talk to you about Mike Conway.

Mike Conway, um, recently, within the last week or so, has said he'll retire, and I'm gonna q- uh, quote from the, um, from the press release, "From top flight motorsport at the end of the current season." We know from drivers in the past that that doesn't necessarily mean that the race boots are gonna be put away in the bottom of the wardrobe and the helmet hung up.

Um, he, I mean, he's had a cracking sports car career.

Um, 43 years old now, which surprised me actually, but that's not, that's not any more a big age, John, is it?

He always tends to have a laugh and, uh, a smile with me.

Um, we should mention Mark Blundell, by the way, a former driver as well, who's, who's been, um, Mike's manager, [smacks lips] um, I think for the whole of his professional career, certainly for the last couple of decades, uh, who's, uh, managed to keep him gainfully employed.

Uh, whatever Mike Conway decides to do, I wish him, I wish him well, and, um, hopefully it doesn't involve cycling 'cause that didn't go-

And that means someone is leaving Toyota.

Well, yeah, we just, uh, today there was the news that, uh, Mike Conway is-

There you go

... um, uh, well, he's, he's retiring.

... what's not to like?

We started this program with Wales, and we're gonna finish this section of the program back in Wales.

Mike Conway.

Yeah, although technically it should be Mike Conway, but no, it's his name.

Tell us a little bit more about the agency as well, because as well as the racing team, you manage people.

So we have a part of the business manages racing drivers, and we've managed the likes of Gary Paffett, DTM champion, Mike Conway, two-time World Endurance Le Mans winner.

22 years I've managed those guys, you know, so long-standing relationships.

Tom Blomquist.

It's, uh, it's, it's gray and, and it'll continue to be gray 'cause it's, it's a tough loophole to close, but it's still not quite the same.

Mike Conway retired today.

Yeah.

Mike-