Dani Pedrosa Is a Champion on Ice Too: He Beats Red Bull F1 and More with the KTM MotoGP Bike

At a Red Bull event, the Spanish rider came out on top against other vehicles on his RC16 in a challenge held under decidedly unusual conditions.

Dani Pedrosa stopped racing as a full-time MotoGP rider in 2018, but has remained part of that world as a KTM test rider, taking part in various tests and also competing as a wildcard on a few occasions. He has never left the asphalt behind. But Red Bull recently put him to the test in an unusual setting: racing on ice aboard the RC16, fitted, of course, with studded tires. He didn't shy away from the challenge and rose to it in spectacular fashion.

The Red Bull Ultimate Winter Race (watch the video HERE) took place in Eagle River, a city in northern Wisconsin known as the "Snowmobile Capital of the World." On a surface of ice and snow, in temperatures of around -17°C, Pedrosa took on four other riders aboard four different vehicles: Patrick Friesacher at the wheel of a Red Bull RB7 F1 car, Scott Speed in a Subaru WRX ARA 2, Andrew Carlson in a PRO4 Truck, and Gunnar Sterne on a Ski-Doo 440 Race Sled snowmobile.

To ensure a fair comparison, bespoke circuits were designed to showcase each vehicle's strengths. All were fitted with special studded tires and modified to cope with the extreme cold. On the KTM RC16 MotoGP bike, steel brake discs were installed, the suspension was shortened, and the engine control unit was remapped. The Michelin tires had a total of 507 studs: 207 on the front and 300 on the rear.

Pedrosa came out on top, with Sterne's snowmobile and Friesacher's F1 car rounding out the race podium. Carlson and Speed followed. Dani commented on his victory: "The start was crucial because my bike was one of the lightest vehicles. I knew that if I could build a gap in the early stages, I would be able to take the corners more cautiously. The other decisive factor was choosing the right lines: since the corners were quite tight, I needed the ideal line to make the sections as straight as possible. I was really surprised by how well the engine held up in these conditions".

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