Bouncing back from their failure to finish at Le Mans that so severely dented their title chances, the polesitter delivered a controlled victory aboard the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar.
A race that featured three safety cars meant their advantage was just 16.5s over the #50 Ferrari 499P LMH of Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen and Antonio Fuoco, but the Toyota had looked comfortable since Lopez took over in the lead during the middle portion of the race.
Conway led the early laps until he was ambushed following the first safety car by an inspired Mikkel Jensen in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 LMH.
Molina then followed through on Conway, who also fell behind Michael Christensen’s #5 works Porsche 963 LMDh during the second stint as Jensen fell back, but the Toyota’s long run pace brought him right back onto the tail of the leading Ferrari after Christensen pitted.
Lopez emerged ahead of Nielsen following their second stops and the car was never headed outside of the pit cycles thereafter, with Kobayashi able to edge away from Fuoco after the advantage north of 46 seconds was wiped out by the final safety car.
This was called when Harry Tincknell stopped on track in the Proton Competition Porsche, making its WEC series debut, which had led at stages through the pitstop cycles.
Source: Autosport