Ice Drifting the Polestar 4 Rewired My Brain

Saint-Sauveur, QC—Polestar wants you to know it’s serious about performance—in all conditions.

The brand brought dozens of automotive media to Circuit Mécaglisse, located a few hours north of Montreal, to showcase just this. The goal: illustrate how poised, predictable, and yes, fun the Polestar 4 can be during the winter. The brand’s latest family member is a hard one to categorize: a 544-horsepower half-coupe, half-crossover with no rear window, it’s about as extrovert as you can expect from the young brand.

I was fortunate enough to sample the Polestar 4 mere weeks earlier, and while our time together included the Great Snow Dump of 2026, obviously I couldn’t fling it around with the same sort of (measured) abandon as is possible on a purpose-built circuit. From piroutting across the ice, mastering the Scandi flick, and a gloriously mad hot lap with a Formula Drift pro behind the wheel, the message is clear: the Polestar 4 is capable and engaging, delivering big slides and big grins.

The day starts easily enough: we penguin-walk our way to the studded tire-equipped Polestar 4s for educational laps, using one of the many loops available at the complex. A short slalom kicks off the circuit, giving us an early opportunity to get a feel for the P4’s weight transfer. Clear and concise coaching from the instructor riding shotgun—thanks, Martin—encourages exploration with a healthy sprinkling of safety; this is a Swedish brand, after all. While we can venture off-line to feel ice steal grip away from the affected axle(s), speeds are kept in check. Those tall walls are packed snow, so any interaction will result in some amateur lightweighting on the P4. No thank you.

While one-pedal driving is available, we keep that to a minimum. It has its place: aggressive regenerative braking can encourage rotation on lift-off and turn-in, but it can be hard to predict here and adds another layer to consider in a series of rapid-fire programs. Instead we’ll be focusing on how power and weight transfer can affect the P4’s cornering stance.

With stability and traction control systems mostly but not ever entirely off—again, Swedish—the car is predictable and satisfying. The clever all-wheel drive system shuffles power where it’s needed, while the well-weighted steering keeps the driver comfortably in charge. The roughly 5,000-pound Polestar 4 finds generous grip in the snow and, when it does lose grip, clearly signals as such. An electric car has no delay in its power delivery, though Polestar’s engineers have engineered in some progressive cushion, at least in the calmer drive mode. It’s the preferred choice around here: as Martin says, even half the horsepower is plenty in these conditions.

Next up are two large skid pads. Even this early in the day the surface is showing clear lines as the cars sweep the grippy snow away, revealing the ice below. The first circle is smaller and flatter, making it easier to initiate and then maintain a slide. It’s all about power here: the electronic nannies will happily sit on the sidelines as the P4 spins its tires, so long as the clumsy meat-sack behind the wheel hasn’t applied a ton of lock. The trick is to keep steering responses to a minimum, instead modulating the throttle to adjust the angle. Find the balance and the P4 will happily do a few rotations entirely sideways.

The second circle is larger and features a slight incline. It’s a fascinating example of how even the smallest changes impact the process. We need higher speeds to maintain that satisfying no-steer equilibrium, but the elevation change pushes the Polestar 4 wide each time, requiring corrections.

After a quick lunch we’re onto the biggest challenge: the vaunted Scandinavian Flick. Build up speed towards a tight downhill right-hander, lift off and pitch the Polestar 4 hard to the outside before—wait—then flick it back towards the corner as you feed power back in. It sounds easy but this being an electric car adds new levels of insulation and patience to the mix.

Insulation? The P4 doesn’t offer any sort of piped-in sounds to coincide with power delivery. That means in slippery conditions it can be hard to tell how much of your right-foot input is translating to the tires. In fact, we find rolling down the windows slightly helps: the unique sound of those studded Michelins digging into the snow and ice provides a welcome gauge.

Patience? That instant-access power is another bit of electric car uniqueness. Throwing the P4 away from the fast-approaching corner feels counter-intuitive, and there’s an urge to get on the power right away to get it pointed towards the apex. But wait—wait, WAIT—for the weight transfer to fling your head that way first, the tell-tale sign that the pendulum has begun to swing. Only then is it appropriate to spin the wheel back towards the corner, feeling car rotate around its low center of gravity and use that built-up speed to now shed speed as it approaches the corner. The more sideways the Polestar 4 is here, the better angle it has to make the corner. My last run is my best, effectively linking the whole section into one big, snowy rooster tail. I feel awesome.

Remember that this is all in cars that are, tires aside, totally stock. Polestar also brought the Polestar 4 Actic Circle Edition to Mécaglisse, which has more aggressive studded Nokian tires wrapping OZ wheels, a 20-millimeter suspension lift along with unique tuning for its Ohlins dampers, and enough lights for a concert. Oh yeah, and the small matter of a hydraulic handbrake. Canada’s top-ranked Formula Drift driver Tommy Lemaire is behind the wheel, and there’s no way I’m skipping a ride-along here.

What goes down is a blistering lap of everything we’ve done today, viewed (mostly) from the side windows. Lemaire is whipping the P4 ACE around, the hydraulic handbrake allowing him to set the car up sideways in an instant. On more than one occasion we’re reverse-entering into corners, the Nokians finding incredible grip as the car is constantly changing its direction. He even pulls a 360-degree spin into a reverse entry on the main straight.

There’s a real lesson buried underneath all the fun and snow of the day. The Polestar 4 was consistent in its responses and feedback, with an athletic yet composed attitude even when grip was in short supply. According to Christian Samson, Polestar head of product identity, that’s by design. “Developing our cars and calibrating them well in slippery conditions and on ice the behaviour is sort of the same being pushed to the limit on wet tarmac or even on dry. If the natural reaction of the car is working nice in these conditions, it’s quite likely—of course we double-check that during development—it will be more forgiving in other conditions.”

Crucially, the Polestar 4 never disobeyed me or behaved unpredictably, a driver-first attitude that shows there’s a future for enthusiasts in the electric era. Yes, even—or perhaps, especially—in the winter.

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