Coulthard charges, Kriss Kyle flies: Red Bull lands a first with BMX jump over moving F1 car
Line up a Formula 1 car and a BMX bike, point them at each other, and every sensible neuron says call it off. Kriss Kyle didn’t. With David Coulthard barreling toward him in an RB7, the Scottish rider launched off a bespoke ramp bolted to the nose of the car and cleared the Red Bull Racing machine in a stunt that’s believed to be a first: a BMX jump over a moving F1 car.
“It was one of the scariest things that I have ever done,” Kyle said afterward. “Hearing and seeing the car come hurtling towards me was crazy, but I just had to clear my mind and concentrate on what I needed to do to make it over.” Seven months of prep, trial and error, and a very precise run-up paid off. “It has been a dream come true to achieve this feat.”
The trick hinged on a “kicker” — a custom-built ramp mounted to the front of the RB7. It had to be strong enough to take a BMX at speed and somehow light and sacrificial enough for Coulthard to spear through safely the instant Kyle was airborne. That’s a puzzle for engineers as much as athletes, and Red Bull rolled in Red Bull Advanced Technologies to solve it.
“We like doing crazy things and driving a BMX bike at an F1 car was a challenge we thought we were up to,” said Greg Borrill, Red Bull Heritage chief mechanic. “We put the wheels in motion with Red Bull Advanced Technologies, and Kriss and needed to make sure that safety was paramount. A lot of design work… went into creating a bespoke kicker that Kriss could use to jump over the car and would enable the car to get out of the way safely. Overall, the stunt was nailed and it was amazing to see.”
Coulthard, no stranger to Red Bull show runs, provided the other half of the trust equation: a rock-steady approach speed and millimeter-accurate line while an athlete stared him down. The choreography left zero margin. Kyle committed to the ramp as the car committed to him. Blink, and you’ve missed it. Flinch, and you’ve got a headline for the wrong reasons.
It’s very Red Bull. This is the brand that sent Felix Baumgartner to the edge of space, watched Austrian skydiver Paul Steiner swap planes mid-air, hustled an F1 car through Palermo’s streets, rolled one down a ski slope, performed a pit stop in zero gravity, and once had Coulthard hot-lap an unfinished Circuit of The Americas. The through-line isn’t just spectacle; it’s engineering theatre with a pulse.
Kyle’s been on a BMX since he was ten, carving a career from audacious lines and meticulously crafted video projects. This one is both: a split-second stunt that took months to build, a human trusting another human strapped into a 750-horsepower missile, and an F1 car sharing a frame with a bicycle — with just enough room for both to breathe.
