Photo : - Romain Dumas

Romain Dumas finished 2nd in his first attempt at Pikes Peak.

In a time of 9:46.181, Romain Dumas came close to victory, having faced rain and hail at the finish line, the winner of the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans (Audi) was only 0.017 seconds the winner, the Rhys Millen.

Driving his Porsche 911 GT3 R, Romain Dumas won in the Open category. The native of Ales, who held the new record for Pikes Peak for several minutes, is already planning to return next year ... To win!

Romain Dumas : "The overall assessment is obviously positive. We confirmed our good form in testing by dominating the Pikes Peak Open class. That was our original goal in terms of a result. I said it several times before, our goal along with the team was also to familiarise ourselves with this very unique environment, to learn the course, and to gather as much information as possible for the future. That’s the case, there’s no doubt about it. Pikes Peak is a legendary race that you have to tame and it takes time. We arrived here on Monday, we had never run here…The team was excellent and there are several positive points. "

"It’s frustrating but we knew this could happen. After 20km and 156 corners, there was only seventeenth thousandths of a second between us and a major coup that nobody could have imagined a few weeks ago…or even a few hours ago ! Along with the team, we quickly immersed ourselves into the competition and we were in the game. We knew we couldn’t rival the best Unlimited class cars, which have much more power, but we weren’t that far. We were able to avoid a certain number of traps event though we had to learn everything. Even though I didn’t know the course and the car had never run on such a surface, we were always among the front runners."

"For a first participation, we couldn’t hope for more. This win in Pikes Peak Open, in a legendary race, is the fruits of efforts begun at the end of 2007 when I entered rallying. I came here with my own team who perfectly prepared the car at Pôle Mécanique d’Alès, and we really enjoyed ourselves during the week. It was a very good sporting and human adventure."

>> Full results of Pikes Peak <<

Julien Hergault - Romain Dumas

Photo : PIKES PEAK (COLORADO), PIKES PEAK, 12th August 2012. Romain Dumas succeeded his debut in the most famous of hill climbs.