- Red Bull’s RB17 makes its dynamic debut at Goodwood this weekend.
- The Cosworth V10 revs to 15,000 rpm and skips all hybrid tech.
- Adrian Newey and two current F1 drivers will run it up the hill.
The Red Bull RB17 makes its global dynamic debut at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, where it will be driven by two F1 drivers and by Adrian Newey, the man who designed it and now serves as team principal of Aston Martin F1.
Two years have passed since the bonkers RB17 was first previewed, and roughly six months since it appeared in production guise for the very first time. Because it was built purely for track use, unlike the Aston Martin Valkyrie that Newey also penned, Red Bull had a free hand to make it as extreme as it wanted. The result is not far removed from the Valkyrie AMR Pro, only more unhinged.
Read: Red Bull’s RB17 Hypercar Changed Again, And Now It’s Even More Unhinged
Pictured here for the first time during recent shakedown tests, the RB17 has received a shade of blue paint with some Red Bull branding. Powered by a 4.5-liter naturally aspirated V10 from Cosworth that’s free of the annoying hybrid tech found in current F1 cars, the RB17 will ignite the Goodwood hillclimb with the sounds of Formula One cars from the V10 era. This engine revs to 15,000 rpm and delivers 1,000 hp, so the car should put on quite a spectacle across the weekend.
Limited Production And Very Expensive
Those fortunate enough to drive it over the weekend include current Red Bull F1 driver Isack Hadjar and current Red Bull Test and Reserve driver Yuki Tsunoda. They will be joined by Red Bull Racing Academy Programme driver Alisha Palmowski, and, of course, Adrian Newey himself.
“At Red Bull, we’re at our best when we’re taking on challenges that others might consider impossible,” Red Bull Advanced Technologies technical director Rob Gray said. “RB17 is exactly that. The ambition was to create a car capable of delivering a level of performance rarely seen outside Formula One, while remaining true to the original vision that inspired the project.”
Total production of the car will be capped to just 50 units, each starting at a frankly startling $6.7 million, or more than double the original going rate for an Aston Martin Valkyrie.
