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Sevenoaks racer Mike Conway claims first IndyCar Series victory with win at the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach

08:45, 18 April 2011

Mike Conway
Mike Conway

Mike Conway completed a remarkable comeback from a horror crash last year to win his first IndyCar Series win on Sunday.

The Sevenoaks racer, who broke multiple bones in a huge crash at the Indianapolis 500 last year, returned with a bang after finishing the third race of the series in the lead at the Grand Prix of Long Beach.

Conway had failed to finish in either of the previous two races, having crashed in both, but he was thrilled to make it third time lucky.

"As soon as I got in the lead, I was thinking of winning already," said the 27-year-old.

"But I knew I had to forget about it and get with the job at hand. The car was great. I could push all the time and control the gap."

It all nearly went wrong for the Andretti Autosport driver though after a pitstop mistake left him trailing the leading cars.

He said: "I made a mistake on a pit stop when I locked up. I thought our day might be done, but we had to hang in there and push all the way. On the restarts the car was awesome and it just came to life."

Conway overtook race leader Ryan Briscoe with 14 laps remaining and pulled out a six second lead by the chequered flag.

"To get this result means a lot more than just points," said Conway, who moves up to fifth in the US series. "I think it's just going to strengthen us as a team moving forward."

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