The car driven in this exceptional test by the company’s own “Iceman” Janne Laitinen, who holds multiple world records, was an Audi RS6. The speed of Nokian Tyres’ own test vehicle reached close to 340 kilometres an hour (211.27 mph) during the record. The new world record was achieved on 9 March near the city of Oulu, on an 12-kilometre (7.5 mile) track created on the ice of the Gulf of Bothnia.
Nokian Tyres talks a lot about the gut feelings of test drivers. They can provide information that not even the most advanced technical instruments or computers can discover. Test driver Janne Laitinen knows the secret behind the world’s best winter tyres. He is an irreplaceable part of the product development of tyres.
When the new Nokian Hakkapeliitta 8 from Nokian Tyres proved its might on the ice of the Bothnian Bay, in unforgiving Northern winter weather, it already had thousands of hours of product development behind it. But it still took hundreds of hours of professional work and dedication against the ice, snow, and wind, before the new record for driving on ice was set at 335.713 km/h (208.602 mph).
