In preparation for the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb 2013 in just over a months’ time, Sebastien Loeb has been out testing his bespoke Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak racer at infamous French mountain road, Mont Ventoux.
The following clip highlights some extremely breathtaking driving manoeuvres from Sebastien Loeb himself with the nine-time World Rally Championship winner testing out the true performance capabilities of a car which will be competing for the trophy and to set a new world record time for the Unlimited class at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb 2013.
Peugeot opted to use the last six kilometres of the technical mountain road to help try and simulate some of the conditions which Loeb and the Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak racer will face at the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb 2013. The peak of Mont Ventoux where the testing took place is at a 6,263 feet, but that’s more than 3,000 feet below where the Pikes Peak International Hillclimb begins, with it finishing at a mesmerising 14,110 feet!
The team’s technical chief Jean-Christrophe Pailler said, “Okay, the altitude isn’t as extreme here as it is at Pikes Peak which reaches 4,301 meters, but it’s a valuable intermediate step. It allows us to see the differences in the way the engine functions, although we hope to suffer less from altitude-induced power-loss than our rivals because of the turbochargers we have chosen.”
