Romain Dumas is a jack of all trades behind the wheel, and no matter what discipline of driving he’s competing in, he is a champ. If you give Romain a well-prepared car it’s pretty likely he’s going to win the race. Last June this guy won Le Mans with Porsche and while his teammates were celebrating he flew to Colorado to win the Pikes Peak Hillclimb, too. Dumas ran a Peugeot 3008 at Dakar for the first two weeks of 2017 where he ultimately finished 8th overall, and immediately flew to Monte Carlo where he won his class in a 997 GT3 RS. Among racing drivers, Dumas is a hero. He’s 39 years old and still has more drive to compete than most half his age.
While Dumas can certainly wheel a car on pavement, it would seem he has no problem with snow and ice either. Thirteen of the fourteen stages on the Monte Carlo rally were coated in the frozen stuff. If you’ve ever driven a GT3 RS in snow and ice, you’ll know it’s no easy task. Teamed with co-driver Gilles de Turckheim, they managed to persevere and conquer all opponents, weather included. In a privateer-entered car against factory-entered competition from Fiat, Dumas managed to finish 26th overall, and first in class, after nearly five hours of special stage competition. The second placed RGT class car finished down in 45th overall, some 26 minutes behind Dumas.
“That was a drive on the razor’s edge. Thirteen of the 14 special stages were driven on snow and ice. You had to be incredibly careful not to end up off the road,” said the 39-year-old Frenchman, “But we made it to the finish and our 911 GT3 RS ran without a single problem. Despite all the difficulties it was great fun and it was definitely not my last Monte.”
