Romain Dumas is king of Pikes Peak again

Frenchman rules the roost in wild 1,400hp Super Mustang Mach-E - but his VW ID. R record remains

By Matt Bird / Monday, 22 June 2026 / Loading comments

Say what you will about Ford’s production EVs, its commitment to making crazy battery-powered concepts is unrivalled. From drag cars to SuperVans, the dedication is nothing if not laudable. And they continue to remind us that these machines will eventually influence the road car technology, so that could be something very special. For now, another Ford EV with a four-figure horsepower output, the Super Mustang Mach-E, has claimed another Pikes Peak win for the Blue Oval.

Romain Dumas was driving the Mustang in Colorado, as he did when the F-150 Lightning SuperTruck was fastest a couple of years ago and when claiming a commercial vehicle record with the SuperVan 4.2 in 2023. With the Mustang, however, he’s gone much faster than before: 8:18.202, when neither of the previous Ford EVs could get under 8:30. It puts the one-off Mach-E near the very top of the fastest Pikes Peaks times; Sebastien Loeb recorded an 8:13.878 in Peugeot’s 208 T16, and there was of course the incredible 7:57.148 achieved by Dumas in the VW ID. R back in 2018. Nothing else has gone faster since Pikes Peak was fully paved in 2012. When dealing with 12.42 miles, 156 turns and more than 1,400m of elevation gain, these are clearly absurdly fast cars.

Which the video proves pretty emphatically. While electric power (and no more gravel at Pikes Peak) does perhaps create less of a spectacle, the Super Mustang Mach-E drives like a slot car in its groove, with no deviation from the chosen line, seemingly no pitch or dive whatsoever, and the kind of acceleration that’s hard to comprehend. It’s difficult to watch and imagine any kind of combustion machine ever beating the EVs now, especially given how an engine is affected by altitude.

As well as the fastest time of the weekend, the Mustang was also able to claim the crown for the new ‘Unlimited - Production Based’ class, so a good result for Ford Racing 110 years after its first Pikes Peak. Even if this Mach-E owes as much to the road car as Noah Lyles does to the average runner. The Super Mustang was actually first revealed at last year’s running of the PPIHC, but because of dodgy weather the weekend ran on a shorter course and thus the significance was reduced somewhat. Plus it was beaten by something called a Nova Proto NP01. Ford says it has been ‘extensively refining’ the cars in the 12 months since, with specific attention paid to roll stiffness, suspension geometry and steering.

Even without that, the raw stats always promised a lot for the Mach-E. A 50kWh battery is about half the size of that in the road car, because performance is obviously much more important than range when charging up Colorado’s most famous hill. It supplies three motors developed between Ford Racing and Austrian specialists STARD, and that bodykit that makes it look like a Mustang from a Marvel movie generates more than five tonnes of downforce. This explains why the onboard makes it look so glued to the road. Don’t expect that sort of thing to make it to production EVs; but improved regen technology, with this Mustang capable of harvesting 710kW, seems likely to trickle down. A Mach-E for the moment offers a maximum of 90kW.

“I’m really, really happy about this win. We were matching our simulation time or even possibly better, so we squeezed everything out,” said Dumas. “The car was great. Driving Pikes Peak is always a great privilege. We know how risky the race is, how dangerous the race is and how we always are playing with the limits." We’ll look forward to a Pikes Peak Edition announced for the Mach-E Rally in due course…