It was a successful opening round of the 2016 World Endurance Championship for Mike Conway at the weekend.

Conway clinched a podium spot with his Toyota teammates, and along with the second place finish the Richard Lloyd Trophy. Silverstone played host to the opening round of the season with the six hour race.

The Richard Lloyd Trophy is awarded to the highest placed member of the British Racing Drivers’ Club which last weekend was Conway.

It was an encouraging start to the season for the team, who were fielding the new Toyota TS050 Hybrid race car for the first time. Conway was joined in the number six car by Stéphane Sarrazin and by Kamui Kobayashi, driving in the championship’s LMP1 class for the first time.

Speaking after a successful opening weekend, Conway said: “This was a not an easy race and our second place was hard fought. Our speed on a single lap was quite strong and we still need to work on the pace over a full driver stint to get closer to our competition. We know the areas we have to focus on, but this we scored solid points and in all it was a pretty good way to finish the weekend.”

In dry, sunny conditions, the new TS050 made a solid debut and marked its potential by posting a lap just 0.354 shy of the overall quickest.

After a tough battle, the Toyota crossed the line in third, but was subsequently awarded second due to the winning No7 Audi being excluded from the results due to a technical infringement.

By virtue of being the only LMP1-Hybrid manufacturer to get both cars to the chequered flag, Toyota leads the World Championship after the first of nine rounds and will be in action again next month at the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on 7 May.

Images courtesy of www.psp-images.co.uk