After playing a hand in the Aston Martin Valkyrie, Red Bull is building its own track only hypercar, the 1250bhp RB17.
In what is known internally as “Adrian’s greatest hits”, Red Bull racing, the same team that has one four F1 world championship titles, is building 50 track only hypercars that’ll make use of F1 technology past and present.
The Red Bull RB17 hypercar will be a natural progression to the Aston Martin Valkyrie, with which Adrian Newey and Red Bull Racing were involved in the design and includes a number of F1-derived tech. Here in the RB17, though, there’ll be a whole lot more Formula One goodies on offer, including a blown diffuser, which was eventually banned in F1 for how effective it was, as well as an aerodynamic package focused on ground effect downforce. Red Bull is aiming for this to be the closest experience you can get to an F1 car.
The RB17 will be designed and built in-house by Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT), with the team aiming for a target weight of just 900kg. The other aim is to lengthen the wheelbase over the Aston Martin Valkyrie, as well as use wider wheels and tyres, targeting a lower centre of gravity. It’ll feature a similar closed cockpit to the Valkyrie with room for driver and passenger.
The engine of choice hasn’t been confirmed yet, although rumours suggest it will come in the form of a twin-turbocharged V8 hybrid from Porsche. Power is said to be 1250bhp in total, 1100hp of which will come from the combustion engine alone, with an electric motor offering 150bhp of performance to fill turbo lag. It’s worth noting that the recently revealed LMdh Porsche 963 race car uses a hybrid twin-turbo engine.
On the development side of things, with an F1 world champion driver under its wings, the Red Bull racing team is not short of talented drivers to test and develop the car’s performance
Why is it called the Red Bull RB17? F1 fans will know that Red Bull’s F1 cars follow a pattern, the 2020 car was called the RB16, but when 2021 rule changes were delayed into 2022 because of the impact of the pandemic, the car became RB16B. The 2022 car then became the RB18, thus missing the RB17 moniker entirely. Christian Horner said: “With this car having true Formula 1 performance, it felt right that it fall in that lineage and have that 17 moniker.”
Want one? Red Bull is aiming to build 15 RB17 hypercars a year with a price tag of £5 million each, not including taxes.
