Video: Romain Dumas’ blistering Pikes Peak run

Having recently completed more than an F1 season’s worth of driving in a single day with his Porsche teammates Marc Lieb and Neel Jani at this year’s 24 hours of Le Mans, you’d thought that Romain Dumas would’ve had enough wheel time for one week.

Not so. Romain got on a plane and flew to Colorado before the confetti had been cleared up to compete in this year's fearsome Pikes Peak hill climb.

For the 100th anniversary of the American event, Dumas piloted his bespoke open-cockpit ‘Norma M20 RD Limited’ in an attempt to become King of the Hill.
The car? It's a purpose-built prototype specifically tuned for the snaking hill climb and has form, having successfully competed in the last few years and being the overall winner in 2014. For 2016, Romain's team went all out by completely reworking the car.

Weight was shaved down to 610kg, power from the Honda-sourced engine rose to provide a one-to-one power ratio, a slicker sequential gearbox was fitted along with a four-wheel-drive system fitted for the first time.

It was worth the effort as for his one-shot run, he ran the 14,115-foot mountain and 12.42-mile course in 8:51.445 seconds. That’s an average speed of 81.28mph on a public road with no guardrails and monster drops.

That makes Dumas the second person in the event’s history to cover the course in less than nine minutes. The only other driver being another rather fast Frenchman, Sebastien Loeb.

You may remember that a few years ago he didn’t just break the Pikes Peak record but unequivocally obliterated it, turning in a time of 8:13.878, which equated to an average 90.53mph on the 156-turn, 4,720-foot ascent to the clouds.

But enough with the numbers, because you need to witness it for yourself. Hit play above and watch the onboard footage from the climb. We think you’ll agree, the way the Norma puts its power down and accelerates from hairpin to hairpin is quite ridiculous.