Fantastic performance by Vanina Ickx steers team Gillet to 6th place at Pikes Peak
Mission accomplished for team Gillet and the Vertigo. With a 6th place in the Time Attack 1 Class of the legendary ‘Race to the Clouds’ at Pikes Peak in Colorado, Vanina Ickx and Tony Gillet can put on record a top-notch performance. Vanina completed this stunning race in 10:54.901, thus achieving her personal objective of finishing under 11 minutes.
‘I’m so happy to have been given the opportunity to do this and I’m glad to have reached my personal objective,’ says Vanina Ickx.
In the last training days leading up to the race, tension was rising as the Vertigo had to cope with some unexpected gearbox issues. Luckily those got solved with some outside help from experts in Texas.
The Time Attack 1 Class features highly modified and specialized production-based race vehicles. But most attention goes to the Unlimited Division in which anything goes as long as it passes the safety inspection and meets organizations’ general rules. The Unlimited Division features some of the most exotic vehicles in the world, and most are specifically built for the race.
It is the famous French racing driver Romain Dumas, who coached Vanina in her preparations for the competition, who is setting a new record in the Unlimited Division, smashing Sébastien Loeb’s record of 2013. With his 100% electric vehicle, Romain Dumas is the first driver to go under 8 minutes (7:57.148).
But breaking records was not Vanina’s main objective. Finishing this non-traditional race is considered an extraordinary achievement in itself. And, this year again, several racers did not make it to the finishing line. The higher you climb the higher the toll of the altitude on both driver and car. Especially the last section of the race is impressive and extremely hard on the racers and the cars’ engines. Temperatures are around freezing point affecting the rubber tires, the thin mountain air slows the racers’ reflexes and robs the engine of its initial power.
Especially for ‘The Race to the Clouds’ the Vertigo was equipped with all of the latest in IoT (Internet of Things), several GoPro cameras and about 40 sensors to capture key data such as oil temperature, cooling fluid, brake pressure, etc. By using all of these features, the team is able to bring the thrill of the race to the fans through a video feed that is enriched with all of the vehicle data taken from the SAP cloud platform. That way fans get an in-depth insight into the performance of Vanina on the track.
‘Being part of this adventure at Pikes Peak has been a fantastic experience,’ comments Paul Mestrum, IoT expert at delaware. ‘As a sponsor and technology partner to the project we had the privilege to witness the development of the linen car and to see how the expertise of each party contributed to Vanina’s performance and helped Automobiles Gillet build an extraordinary Vertigo. The whole team should be very proud of this first-class achievement.’
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