Race week at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb kicks off on Monday, 18th June, with the Technical Inspection for participating vehicles in Colorado Springs. Attendance is compulsory for the I.D. R Pikes Peak, the first fully-electric racing car from Volkswagen. The official practice session starts the next day.
"The adrenaline levels will rise steadily until the race on Sunday," says Romain Dumas, the three-time Pikes Peak winner who will be driving the I.D. R Pikes Peak. His mission at the 'Race to the Clouds' is to set a new record in the class for electric vehicles. A mission that officially began on 18th October 2017. "In the beginning, we really did have a blank sheet of paper," recalls Volkswagen Motorsport Director Sven Smeets.
The I.D. R Pikes Peak is much more than just a racing car. The prototype is also a technological showpiece and a test lab on wheels for the electric production cars from the I.D. family, which Volkswagen will bring to the market from 2020. The aim of competing in this event is to learn lessons from motorsport that can be applied to production. The 20km course climbs to a height of 4,302m, higher than the Otztal Glacier Road in Austria - the highest paved road in Europe that is open to motor vehicles.
