Last year, Romain Dumas was fresh off his overall victory when he arrived at Pikes Peak, but this year the French driver, "lent" to Alpine by his employer Porsche for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, had to settle for eighth place in the LMP2 class (10th overall) with his teammates Matt Rao and Gustavo Menezes.

With a new car, the MXX designed by Norma, one of the six constructors developing LMP3 chassis, the two-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner (in 2010 with Audi and in 2016 with Porsche) will attempt a hat trick in Colorado at the 95th edition of the "race to the clouds," as is nicknamed the dizzying 4,302-meter climb.

The altitude renders the weather quite unpredictable, and this past Friday was no exception with fog blanketing the final pre-race running that fortunately had no impact on the order of the starting grid for Sunday: Romain Dumas, eighth at the last Dakar race, will start from the pole and even clocked the fastest times in each section of the hill climb. Now the French native needs to continue that momentum over the entire race since at Pikes Peak competitors do the racing path in sections and only run the entire hill climb the day of the race.

The weather forecast for Sunday predicts scattered rain showers which could prove challenging for the competitors. Let's hope that Romain Dumas, the third French winner after Michèle Mouton and Sébastien Loeb, will not encounter any hail which lost him the race back in 2012…by 17-thousandths of a second!

The start of the Pikes Peak hill climb (official website) will be given on Sunday, June 25th at 8:00 a.m., 3:00 p.m. in the U.K.

PHOTO (Copyright - James Holland): Romain Dumas' Norma MXX during the Pikes Peak free practice.