Kent’s Mike Conway and the Toyota Gazoo Racing are prepared and positive ahead of contesting the 84th running of the Le Mans 24 hours.

It is one of the world’s most prestigious motorsports events and the centrepiece of the 2016 World Endurance Championship season.

This year will be Toyota’s 18th Le Mans entry since its first appearance at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1985 and the team will be seeking to add to its record of five podium finishes, including two second place results.

The #6 car will be piloted by MB Partners’ client Mike Conway together with Kamui Kobayashi and Stéphane Sarrazin, who has claimed pole at Le Mans three times.

Ahead of the race, Conway commented: “There are more unknowns this year and we are eager to know exactly where we stand. Even after all the thousands of kilometres we’ve done already, until we do long stints in practice and then flat-out qualifying runs, we don’t know exactly how we compare.”

“The performance steps from all the LMP1 manufacturers have been really impressive in the last year or so. We know we are close; we will find out just how close very soon.”

Toyota heads for Le Mans determined to build on the race-winning pace shown at the last WEC race at Spa, where the TS050 Hybrids looked on course for victory before engine problems intervened. Thorough investigation of the data has revealed the issue was specific to the circuit, a result of the cars’ “bottoming out” as they went through the Eau Rouge corner.

In spite of the disappointing result in Belgium, the potential shown during the race has raised the team’s hopes for Le Mans, where its goal is to win the race for the first time. The official test session on 5 June raised the prospect of a close-fought encounter, with the Toyota’s lap times marking an improvement of up to more than two seconds on 2015, in spite of tighter rules on fuel consumption that have been introduced for this year’s WEC season.

Both cars ran reliably, covering 177 laps – a distance just shy of 1,500 miles.

Le Mans qualifying will begin next Thursday with two-hour sessions at 7pm and 10pm (local time). The traditional drivers’ parade will follow on Friday, with Saturday’s action starting with a warm-up session at 9am, ahead of the race getting under way at 3pm.

Picture supplied by PSP Images.