Loeb to contest Pikes Peak Challenge in new Peugeot 208 T16

 
Frenchman Sébastien Loeb, nine times world rally champion, is set to contest the 2013 Pikes Peak Hill Climb in the new Peugeot 208 T16 in Colorado, USA, on June 30th this year. Peugeot’s bid to win the unique, Colorado Springs-based event with the new 208 T16 Pikes Peak has seen the company joining forces with key partners Total, Red Bull and Michelin. The Peugeot 208 T16 Pikes Peak, to be unveiled in mid-April, has been entered in the premier ‘Unlimited’ class and has been given the start number ‘208’. Its sole objective is victory.

Exactly 100 years ago Peugeot notched up its first racing victory, at Indianapolis, the oldest motorsport competition in the USA and the first of a very long list of successes for Peugeot in some of motorsport’s most mythical events. The company’s sporting prowess became an integral part of its DNA.

Peugeot’s previous participation in the epic Pikes Peak race saw the Brand triumph with the legendary 205 T16 and 405 T16 Pikes Peak. Ari Vatanen’s unforgettable record-breaking victory in the 1988 event in the 405 T16 is documented by the celebrated film, ‘Climb Dance’. Peugeot won the famous hill climb a second time in 1989, this time with the USA’s Robby Unser behind the wheel.

Pikes Peak today remains one of motorsport’s most exacting, internationally-reputed competitions. The Pikes Peak Hill Climb’s course was entirely covered in tarmac last year and comprises 156 turns over a distance of 20 kilometres that take competitors from an altitude of 2,800 metres to
4,300 metres at its highest point. The event is famous, too, as the USA’s second-oldest motorsport competition after Indianapolis and, over the decades, it has earned a reputation as a notoriously difficult and complex challenge.

To maximise its chances of winning the Pikes Peak Hill Climb with the 208 T16 Pikes Peak, Peugeot has enlisted the support of the very best partners for this exceptional project, namely Total, Red Bull, Michelin and Sébastien Loeb. The nine-time world rally champion was able to accept Peugeot’s proposal thanks to Citroën which has authorised its star driver to contest the American event for the first time in his career.

The new Peugeot 208 has enjoyed strong sales since it was launched in mid-2012: 300,000 units manufactured up to end-February 2013. The 208 GTi is currently being launched across Europe to much applaud and the compact 2008 Crossover will complete the 208 range this summer. Peugeot’s commercial successes have historically been accompanied by success in motorsport. The decision to take on the challenge of the extraordinary, mythical, exacting Pikes Peak competition, which helped to forge the Brand’s reputation in the late 1980s, fits perfectly with the Peugeot Brand’s international growth drive.