02 July 2022
Cost £5.02 million before tax and will make only 50.
There’s a new player in the hypercar game, and its name is Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT).
In Formula One terms, Adrian Newey OBE is a certified genius, a British Formula One engineer. He is currently the chief technical officer of the Red Bull Racing Formula One team.
Mr Newey has always had an affinity for projects outside Grand Prix racing. By getting creative with new concepts and ideas, via RBAT, war is about to break. They plan to take on the likes of Aston Martin Valkyrie and Mercedes-AMG One with their RB17.
According to the latest rumours, the Red Bull RB17 Hypercar will have a Twin-turbo Hybrid V8 engine producing more than 1,100 hp. This monster is built using a carbon-composite tub, and RBAT claims it will benefit from the ‘most advanced ground effect package available in a series production car.’
The intention is to build only 50 motor cars at a rate of 15 per year, the first car to be built-in 2025. I understand that most of these hypercars have a ‘name against them. By the way, they can’t be driven on the public highway, although it appears that the car is under development to produce a road-legal version.
The name RB17 also fills a gap in the Red Bull naming sequence. During the 2020 season, their F1 car was the RB16. Had it not been for the Covid-19 pandemic and the enforced freeze in F1’s technical regulations, last year’s Red Bull F1 car would have been called the RB17; when the carryover to cut costs was implemented between 2020 and 2021, Red Bull opted to call its F1 car the RB16B in 2021, with the 2022 season descriptive, RB18.