The wildest racing machines tackled the 12.4 miles of the Pikes Peak hill climb course this past weekend in preparation for the big finale to be held June 30.
For the first time, competitors got the chance to drive the famous Pikes Peak course in its entirety, which reaches a vertiginous 4300 metres at its summit.
“We’ve done two test sessions now and my feeling is that the car is ready,” said none-time World Rally Champion, Sebastien Loeb who drives a 875-bhp Peugeot 208 T16.
“But one big question mark is the fact that many of our serious rivals have skipped the two test sessions held so far. So while I’m confident that we’ve done as much as we need to do, you never know what the others have up their sleeve.”
“It’s not like a race with a warm-up lap, or a rally with a road section, before you start here. You just sit in the car and bang! You’re off at full speed straight away!” Loeb added.
“A car like this is actually never what you would call easy to drive, but that’s what makes it so thrilling,” said Loeb at the end of the test.
“In the end though, we discovered some really useful things. I never had a chance to drive the whole mountain before – just sections of it – so the work we did on Friday, when we could go from the very bottom all the way to the top, was a really good taste of what was to come. And we had four potential tire compounds to choose from, so we evaluated them all and selected the compound that we thought would suit the conditions best,” he ended.
For the first time, competitors got the chance to drive the famous Pikes Peak course in its entirety, which reaches a vertiginous 4300 metres at its summit.
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| Photos: Red Bull |
“We’ve done two test sessions now and my feeling is that the car is ready,” said none-time World Rally Champion, Sebastien Loeb who drives a 875-bhp Peugeot 208 T16.
“But one big question mark is the fact that many of our serious rivals have skipped the two test sessions held so far. So while I’m confident that we’ve done as much as we need to do, you never know what the others have up their sleeve.”
 |
| Photo: Red Bull |
“It’s not like a race with a warm-up lap, or a rally with a road section, before you start here. You just sit in the car and bang! You’re off at full speed straight away!” Loeb added.
“A car like this is actually never what you would call easy to drive, but that’s what makes it so thrilling,” said Loeb at the end of the test.
“In the end though, we discovered some really useful things. I never had a chance to drive the whole mountain before – just sections of it – so the work we did on Friday, when we could go from the very bottom all the way to the top, was a really good taste of what was to come. And we had four potential tire compounds to choose from, so we evaluated them all and selected the compound that we thought would suit the conditions best,” he ended.
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| Photo: Red Bull |