There is no greater cliché in the horological universe than that of the racing watch. The design touchpoints are well-worn – tyre-print straps and wheel-shaped winding rotors. The stories of the greatest names – the Carrera, the Daytona, the Monaco – revisited ad infinitum. Surely, one’s inner cynic is moved to ask, it can’t be real? Surely today’s racing driver – a clean-living, publicity-shy professional, light-years removed from the swashbuckling Mr James Hunt stereotype – isn’t actually bothered by old-fashioned gears and springs?

Five minutes into my conversation with Mr Mike Conway, my inner cynic was dispatched to sit in the corner and consider its mistakes. You will be hard pushed to find a more enthusiastic watch fan in the racing world; reference numbers at his fingertips and an enviable collection to his name. That name itself is one that you may not be familiar with, although that says everything about the dominance of Formula 1 in the public eye and nothing about his talent and achievements.

Over two decades in motorsport, Conway has established himself as a championship-winning driver across multiple formats. Currently, you’ll find him driving for Toyota at the top level of endurance racing – a championship series that includes the legendary 24 hours of Le Mans, which he won in 2021.

Taking first place in the century-old race is no mean feat; competitors drive round the clock for up to three hours at a time, one lapse in concentration away from a collision at up to 230mph. It’s not uncommon to lose 5kg during the race. It’s even more typical to drive your heart out for the best part of a day only for a crash to scupper your hopes at the 23rd hour. Endurance is the word. But watch geeks know one other significant thing about the race: the winners get given a Rolex Daytona.

“I stayed away from Rolex because I wanted to win one,” Conway says. “That was my goal. I tried so many years to win [Le Mans] and kept finishing second. We kept having bad luck – like getting a puncture in the last hour. I was determined to win the bloody thing, and finally, in 2021, we got it done. It was a weight off my shoulders, to be honest.

“That actually wasn’t my first Daytona – I won my first for the [World Endurance] championship, a reference 116503 in steel and gold. I kept it in the box and didn’t want to wear it because it was kind of special. I’ve still got the stickers on it and everything. But the following year, I won Le Mans and I got my steel Daytona. Once I got that, I wore it all the time.

“The following year, we won the championship again, and I got another gold and steel Daytona. So, having waited more than a decade, in the space of just over a year, I got three. I gave my third one to my dad, because he deserved it for all the hard work he put in over the years.”

Conway senior certainly earnt his Rolex. A mechanic by training, living and working in southeast London, he instilled an early love of all things automotive in his son. Having taken him karting at a young age, he soon found himself committed to a life of competition up and down the country. “He was loving the fact that we could go away and play around in motorsport a bit,” Conway says. “It was a good environment, you had other kids and families doing the same thing, so it ended up being like another family when you go away for race weekends – and it’s still like that now.”

“But I don’t know how my dad did it – we’d drive up to Scotland and back, arriving home at three or four in the morning and he’d be off to work at 6.00am.” It was hardly the glamorous life you see on Netflix’s Drive To Survive, either. Grassroots motorsport has a more make-do-and-mend attitude.

“We ended up buying our own kart, which Dad had found money for,” Conway says. “And we had an old Range Rover. We had to flip down the back seats and roll the kart in to go racing. That was fine if I was sitting in the front, but if someone else wanted to come along, I’d have to sit in the kart for the whole journey. Not strapped in, there are no seatbelts in a go-kart, I’d just be hunkering down with a set of spare tyres and a can of fuel beside me. That’s how it was. Everyone was in the same boat.”

The love of watches may have blossomed in his time as a driver – buying everything from IWC Schaffhausen chronographs in ceramic, an oversized Zenith GMT Pilot and vintage Heuer to the highly sought-after Patek Philippe Nautilus 5712 (not to mention, once he’d landed the prize Daytonas, a few other Rolexes). But it, too, was originally inspired by his father.

My dad always had some nice watches,” he says. “I remember when he first made some money, he went and bought a pair of matching Rolexes, which was the thing back in the 1980s and 1990s. He had the Datejust 36 in steel and gold, and my mum had the smaller version.

“When he put a watch on, it stayed on. He’s in the shower, in the sea, working on the cars, he would just wear that thing out. That’s what I thought was really cool – he appreciated that they were expensive items, really nice items to have, but at the same time he wasn’t so precious that he wouldn’t mind getting a scratch on it. That’s kind of how it sits with me, too – you’ve got to wear them and enjoy them because that’s what they’re for.

“He bought me, for my 13th or 14th birthday, a TAG Heuer Kirium, with that smooth bracelet on it. It was quite small, I think 35mm, and I thought it was really very cool. Then, when I turned 21, my mum and dad bought me a Panerai Luminor chronograph. That was 44mm, so quite hefty. At the time, they were limited, it felt quite special. That got me into the upper level of watches, I guess.”

Travelling extensively for the international race schedule means one watch sees significantly more wrist time than the rest – the jet-set Rolex GMT-Master II “Batman”. But like any true watch addict, Conway knows the collection is likely to keep growing regardless.

“I don’t want to keep climbing that ladder, it starts to get really expensive,” he says. “But you’re always looking at the next one, aren’t you? That’s the problem – you can’t help yourself. It’s exciting to see what comes out at Watches and Wonders. I think I’d love a minute repeater. I just love the complexity of it, how it’s put together. I’ve never seen one on anyone’s wrist – probably won’t, really – and most don’t even have prices on, when you’re looking.”

Home these days is Monaco, of course, where you would stand more chance than most of spotting something like a minute repeater out and about. But true to form for a modern, professional sportsman, the party scene isn’t of interest. “Monaco’s a pretty normal place, the way we live it,” he says. “There’s lots of glamour and glitz here if you want it, but that’s not me.”