When the archetypical energy drink giant, Red Bull, unleashes its seemingly unlimited resources to create its first car, expect the extraordinary. Enter the RB17, a low-slung aerodynamic rocketship making nearly twice its own weight in downforce.
At this year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, Christian Horner, team principal for Red Bull’s multi-championship Oracle Red Bull Formula 1 team, revealed Red Bull’s latest addition to extreme sport: the RB17. A hybrid mid-engine, 1,200 hp (895 kW) razorblade, capable of over 217 mph from its naturally aspirated 4.5l V10, screaming at 15,000 rpm.
“With 20 years of legacy in the world of F1 to draw from, and as a performance-centered organization, it only made sense for us to design our own hypercar from the ground up,” said Horner. Adrian Newey, the most successful designer in F1 history, has crafted this avant-garde monocoque hypercar, utilizing carbon fibers and key materials sourced from Red Bull’s F1 vendors to create 50 of these beasts.
Can we even call it a hypercar? First, it was sports cars. Then supercars. Now hypercars. Koenigsegg even proposed the term Megacar. The RB17 feels like the next evolution. Red Bull touts it as more like a two-seater F1 car, beyond the “hypercar” genre. While the RB17 may not boast the highest horsepower figures against cars in its class at “only” 1,200 hp, it is one of the lightest at 1,984 lb (900 kg), giving it a power-to-weight ratio of 1,210 hp per ton. That’s slightly more than Max Verstappen’s RB20 F1 car at 1,137 hp per ton.
However, this car won’t be seen at your local Starbucks as it will not be street-legal. Like Ferrari’s FXX-K, the RB17 is a racetrack exclusive, with a US$7.5 million price tag. The RB17 features active aero, pushrod suspension, and carbon anti-lock brake-by-wire stoppers behind its 18-inch Michelin wheels. Each of the 50 cars will have unique aesthetic designs tailored to their owners, including custom interior and exterior colors and materials.
Jeremy Clarkson once said about the Bugatti Chiron, “This doesn’t challenge the law of physics. It bludgeons them.” The RB17, however, appears to disseminate these laws across timed road courses surgically.
And why RB17? During the global pandemic, Max Verstappen drove the 2020 RB16 F1 car before the 2021 RB16B, then jumped straight into the RB18 in 2022. The RB17 name was available, and has now been taken.