Ford’s 1,600bhp+ F-150 Lightning SuperTruck stops on track, still wins Pikes Peak

Romain Dumas was crowned King of the Mountain at the 102nd running of the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this weekend, with the Frenchman recording a time of 8m 53.553s in the Ford Performance F-150 Lightning SuperTruck.

As you might have noticed, this ain’t no ordinary F-150 Lightning. There’s the small matter of that rear wing for starters, and the fact it’s making north of 1,600bhp.

Things didn’t all go to plan for Dumas and the Ford Performance team on race day, though. After just a few corners the all-electric SuperTruck came to a complete stop and Dumas lost 26 seconds as he performed a full reset. That old IT department trick brought the F-150 back to life and Dumas drove like a man possessed (or like a man who holds the outright Pikes Peak record) to secure top spot on the podium.

“Everything about this event is a challenge because it is unlike any other form of racing,” said Dumas. “You only have one shot. We faced a challenge early on but that only gave me more determination to make up the lost time in the rest of the run.”

Dumas was the only driver to record a time under the nine-minute mark this year, but the stoppage did mean that he wasn’t able to beat his time of 8m 47.682s in the SuperVan last year. He did however set a new qualifying record for the Open Class with a time of 3m 32.831s.

Oh, and apparently this isn’t the end for the SuperTruck. It’ll reappear elsewhere in the world soon and will no doubt break a few commercial vehicle speed records along the way.