WHAT IT IS The first production car from Red Bull Technologies, the engineering division of the Red Bull Racing Group—you know, the company presently dominating Formula 1. The hypercar was conceived by Red Bull Racing’s F1 design genius, Adrian Newey, during a COVID lockdown in the UK. (Talk about idle time well spent.) It’s called RB17 in a nod to Red Bull’s naming convention for its F1 cars and as a gap filler: Because of the pandemic, F1 decided grand prix cars for the 2021 season would be mostly carryover designs from 2020, so RBR’s 2020 car was dubbed the RB16, and its not-really-new 2021 machine the RB16B. When the team subsequently named its 2022 contender the RB18, “RB17” could be used here without duplicating the name of an actual race car.
WHY IT MATTERS It depends on your definition of “matters.” Red Bull will design, engineer, develop, and build the cars—it will only make 50 of them—nearly entirely in-house, unlike when it and Newey worked with former F1 partner team Aston Martin to create the Valkyrie (as seen in the gallery). The RB17 will be notable for this historical reason alone, but it quite likely will also be significant for delivering the most extreme performance ever seen in a new car offered to the public straight from a factory. Newey and Red Bull want to deliver as near to F1 performance as they can achieve for the starting price of £5 million (approximately $6.2 million). It’s quite a shift to the real world from the Vision Gran Turismo car (below) Red Bull created just over a decade ago for the video game series.
PLATFORM AND POWERTRAIN The two-seat RB17 will not be street legal, at least not at first, and is intended specifically for track use. That being the case, the car—built around a carbon-fiber monocoque chassis—will feature F1-derived engineering solutions. Red Bull says it will have advanced ground effects and, you can bet, other extreme aerodynamic approaches, some of which have been long outlawed in actual racing series. So expect to see things like ground-sealing “skirts” and a “blown” diffuser put to work. As for the powertrain, it’s anchored by a twin-turbo V-8 with a hybrid component, producing more than 1,100 hp. Red Bull hasn’t confirmed where and by whom the engine or motor will be built, but it has suggested it will involve a third party. It’s unknown if RBR’s newly minted partnership with Ford for its F1 powertrain operation will come into play with the RB17.
ESTIMATED PRICE $6.2 million
ESTIMATED ON-SALE DATE 2025
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