VW I.D. R Pikes Peak Racer Dominates Qualifying

The Pikes Peak International Hill climb is going on this weekend and racers from around the world are on the mounting practicing right now. We have talked about the VW I.D. R Pikes Peak racing car before and it has been doing extremely well so far. VW has announced that the I.D. R Pikes Peak has set the fastest time in qualifying.

Note that the VW electric racer didn't take the top time in the EV class, it took the top time overall. In fact, the VW racing car was 11.049 seconds faster than the second-place finisher, Simone Faggioli, who was driving a Norma M20 SF PKP racing car with a traditional combustion engine. VW's driver is Romain Dumas, a three-time Pikes Peak winner.

Dumas says that he has never experienced power and acceleration of this sort in a racing car. VW points out that this is only qualifying and on race day, the team has only one attempt. Any mistakes could cost VW the win, and it really wants that win. Qualifying for the race only runs the first section of the course from start to the 8.3km mark.

That is used to set the starting place of the cars. The fastest car gets to start first, however, motorcycles will start before all the cars. On Sunday the 24 registered motorcycles will start at 8:00 am MST. There are 62 cars registered in different classes.

Romain Dumas and his I.D. R Pikes Peak is set to take off at 10:00 MST. The official race will run the entire 19.99-kilometer course that gains thousands of feet of elevation on its way to the top of the mountain. The top of Pikes Peak often still has snowbanks well into the summer and the lack of oxygen above 10,000 feet makes many visitors dizzy. An EV that needs no air has an advantage up top.

SOURCE: VW