Red Bull is well-known for two things. Making energy drinks and building cars that win Formula 1 championships. But for the first time in its history, Red Bull will be known for building a production car that people can actually buy and use on track days. Announced in 2022, RB17 became the first hypercar project to be undertaken by Red Bull Advanced Technologies with a price tag of £5 million. In a recent conversation with Sky Sports, the CEO of Red Bull Racing, Christian Horner, revealed that the car will be unveiled in 2024. However, what was even more exciting was that Horner nearly gave us the confirmation whether Red Bull would become a proper road car manufacturer.

Adrian Newey will go down in the history of Formula 1 as the most successful car designer. And he has long wanted to build a car without worrying about any restrictions, be it sporting or road car regulations. And RBAT found a way to let Newey unleash his magic, and that’s how the RB17 was born.

Christian Horner almost gave away Red Bull’s road car plans with a cryptic statement

In an exclusive with Sky Sports, Christian Horner confirmed the debut of the 1250bhp V8 powerhouse, designed with a focus on track-day use. The RB17, described by Horner as “Adrian Newey unleashed,” is the brainchild of the renowned Formula 1 designer.

The closed-roof hypercar, a natural progression from Newey Newey-designed Aston Martin Valkyrie will be a limited-edition hypercar. With the production limited to 50 units, made at a rate of 15 per year, most of these cars are already sold.

Speaking of how the concept for RB17 came into existence, Horner told Autocar, “Adrian wanted to do a car [for us] back in 2014, and at that point in time, we found a route through that by doing all the design work for the Valkyrie in partnership with Aston Martin.” Learning from the Valkyrie project, Horner emphasized how RBAT has accumulated nearly eight years of knowledge, making RB17 a perfect project to complement its Formula 1 activities.

However, when asked whether Red Bull plans to get into making road cars, Horner chose to answer the question without actually answering. He said, “It’s the start of a journey. It’s an interesting starting point for us. You can never say ‘never’, but certainly this is a halo project for us.“

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With RB17 being the first-of-its-kind vehicle made by Red Bull under the guidance of Adrian Newey, it is set to be a technological masterpiece.

Did Adrian Newey incorporate F1-like features in the RB17?

During his conversation with Autocar, Red Bull Advanced Technologies technical director Rob Gray shed light on the car’s engineering, noting the similarities between the RB17 and Red Bull’s Formula 1 car in terms of design principles. He also gave reasons for why they are not going to mass-produce the RB17.

“Most of this car, the core, we are capable of building in-house. That’s why we have such a low volume target. We know how to build low-volume vehicles. We don’t want to do mass production,” said Rob Gray.

In subsequent interviews with Autocar, Adrian Newey talked about some of the features he has built into the car. “It will be a skirted car, so flexible skirts – because we can – and clearly large ground effect tunnels, active suspension as it could be driven on circuits that aren’t as smooth as [F1 tracks] and we’re trying to avoid having very stiff suspension. It will also have exhaust blowing, all the tricks that we’ve learned [in F1], in other words,” said Newey.

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