PPIHC: Wilson preparing for wild P2 run at Pikes Peak

Verizon IndyCar Series driver Justin Wilson has raced in many forms of motorsport, but his job piloting Honda's ARX-04b Le Mans Prototype up the mountain during this weekend's Pikes Peak International Hill Climb could be the oddest adventure of all.

From V8 Supercars at Surfers Paradise to LMP1 prototypes at Le Mans to Indy cars at the Indy 500, the respected Briton is as versatile as they come, but with minimal seat time in the carbon fiber LMP2 machine, his normal routine involving extensive pre-race preparations have been limited. It's left the Andretti Autosport-affiliated driver with a giant learning curve leading into this week's run to the clouds.

"It's tough; I'm sat here and feel underprepared right now because I haven't driven anything but my Acura MDX up the mountain; I've been up the mountain three times at 25mph, but nothing at speed," Wilson told RACER while sitting at the Pikes Peak oval on Tuesday.

Wilson, whose interest in online gaming is legendary, has turned to one of his favorite tools to fill in where actual experience racing up the hill is lacking. He'll get a chance to blast through all 12.4 miles and 156 corners early Wednesday morning, and hopes his time practicing the course at home will pay off.

"I've been on the simulator at home using rFactor 2, which is OK – you can't get too zoned into that because it isn't 100 percent accurate, but it has helped me while being unable to race up the mountain on my own," Wilson explained.

"We didn't run this morning because we had a turbo problem, so I'm hoping to run the car tomorrow in qualifying. I went up the track a few days and recorded it with my phone, went back to my hotel and put it on my computer, watched it over and over again sped up, and tried to pick out some places to be careful so you don't kill yourself. It's like trying to learn the Nurburgring for the first time...but on the side of the mountain...and it has no barriers."

With the pre-race issues in mind, expectations for the project appear to have evolved. Any thoughts of beating Sebastien Loeb's record run of 8:13.878 have been tabled for a future return to the PPIHC, making Wilson's efforts this week more of a public testing program than an attempt on cracking the 8min13sec barrier.

"It's pretty cool, and you have to have a lot of respect for Pikes Peak, so I'm coming in trying to learn the car in a short amount of time, learn the track, and deal with whatever challenges we're faced with," Wilson noted. "We have a giant front splitter, so hopefully we don't grind it off on all the corners and cambers, so that's something to take into account, and we're still learning the engine and the chassis setup. The whole spirit of what we're doing this year is it's an exploratory mission, and that's true.

"We have the 3.5-liter V6 engine that's different than what they use in P2; it's got bigger turbos, and what we're using at Pikes Peak Raceway for a test track is only at 6000 feet, which is different than the full 14,000 feet we'll reach going up the mountain, so this is more of data gathering for a run in the future than a run to break records this moment."

Wilson's appearance at Pikes Peak (RIGHT) follows his maiden run in the FIA Formula E series in Russia with the Andretti team. The move from a low-power all-electric formula car to a cutting edge 650hp prototype sports car poses a similar situation of having to learn a new car in s short amount of time, and with plenty of unknowns ahead, Wilson says he'll make the most out of whatever happens on the mountain

"I'll get to run up the hill tomorrow at 5 a.m. for the first time, and by the time we do qualifying, you need to do one run in each section as a rookie to get to go through into the race, so we have a lot of boxes to tick off and it's a busy time," he remarked.

"We've got good people from Extreme Speed Motorsports here, good people from Honda and HPD, so we're kind of in this together. I don't know what we'll find or what to expect, but it's a fun project...it's also a crazy project, so it's right up my alley."

With the car strapped to the back of a tow truck for the short trip from the oval circuit to their staging position for their morning activities, the project is finally headed to Pikes Peak. News of nagging motor issues late Tuesday, however, could dampen the team's ability to run on Wednesday – and the remainder of the event. Stay tuned for more information as it becomes available.