Sébastien Loeb will be attempting to make history with the 208 T16 Pikes Peak

On Wednesday, Loeb won both his qualifying runs in the Unlimited category, meaning that he gets to start first of the class. But the group of 11 Unlimited competitors as a whole had to decide which time slot to start in by consensus, in consultation with the event organizers.

The Unlimited class will start straight after the 83 motorbikes, which get underway at 08:00am on Sunday morning. Following a short break to escort the bikes down the hill, the Peugeot will be first off.

Because it’s hard to know exactly how long it will take all the motorbikes to complete the course, there’s no official start time given for Loeb and his rivals on Sunday. Most people expect the Unlimited class to start from around 09:30am though (05:30pm in mainland Europe, with Colorado time being eight hours behind). This is only a theoretical time if everything runs exactly to plan with no delays, so be sure to follow our updates closely on the day.

There is a small chance of rain early on Sunday afternoon over Pikes Peak and this is another reason why Loeb is keen to get going as early as possible on the day. “We’ve seen from all our testing that the earlier you go, the better it tends to be, ” said the Frenchman. “So I’m happy to be starting first. I think we have everything ready: now it’s just down to me and the Peugeot Sport team to perform so that we achieve our target.”

That target is to win the competition overall and break the current record of 9m46.164s, exactly 25 years after Peugeot last shattered the Pikes Peak record with former World Rally Champion Ari Vatanen in 1988. On that occasion, the benchmark that Vatanen set remained undefeated until 1994, six years later.

Following his success in qualifying on Wednesday using the lower part of the all-asphalt course, Loeb used the practice sessions on Thursday and Friday to test on the middle and upper parts of the route respectively. The team confirmed the final set-up that has been chosen for the 875-horsepower, one-off 208 T16 Pikes Peak and scrubbed in the bespoke Michelin tyres that will be used for the race.

Peugeot Sport