Newey delighted as Red Bull car unhampered by F1 regulations

Adrian Newey has talked about his excitement about designing a car which isn’t restricted by Formula 1’s regulations.

Red Bull’s Newey, who has designed the last three world championship-winning cars, remains one of the last designers to create his cars using a pencil and paper.

Newey's career began in 1980 when he joined Emerson Fittipaldi’s Fittipaldi outfit fresh from graduating from the University of Southampton. Since then, Newey has designed title-winning cars for Williams, McLaren and Red Bull.

The Brit also tasted success in the IndyCar series, designing the March 85c and 86c, which helped Danny Sullivan and Bobby Rahal win the 1985 and 1986 Indy 500s.

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In recent years, Newey has turned his hand to road car design, jointly creating the Aston Martin Valkyrie with Aston Martin's design director, Miles Nurnberger, in 2017. The Valkyrie is a two-door coupe powered by a 6.5-litre V12 engine, which produces an incredible 1,160bhp.

The Valkyrie will go racing in 2025 as part of Aston Martin’s entry into the World Endurance Championship’s hypercar category, and it will also compete in America's IMSA Sportscar Championship.

Newey's next project is now creating a hypercar for Red Bull. Named the RB17, the hypercar will begin testing in 2025 before going into production in 2026, where only 50 will be sold to the public.

Unlike the Valkyrie, the RB17 will be powered by a 1000bhp naturally aspirated V10 and a 200bhp electric motor. Banned F1 technical innovations such as active suspension and blown diffusers will also appear on the car, with the RB17’s downforce capped at 1.7 tonnes.

Newey has even boldly predicted that in the hands of a professional racing driver, the RB17 can match a current F1 car’s lap times.

“In many ways, the design philosophy is very similar [to F1]," explained Newey in the Talking Bull podcast. “The approach in terms of how we do our research, design, manufacture, development, the process is the same, it’s just applied differently, of course.

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“The challenge we set ourselves is that adaptability of the car. But then, ultimately, the car, if driven by a professional driver, is capable of Formula 1 lap times. It’s kind of mind-blowing in a way that this car, which is a two-seater, can produce that sort of performance.

“In the case of this, we don’t have Formula 1 regulations to restrict us, but we do have, of course, all the normal physical constraints. We’re making it a two-seater, so you’ve got to package two people in reasonable comfort.

“We’ve given it a bit more space interior-wise than Valkyrie had, just to make it a little bit more comfortable. Certainly, also, for tall people, it’s got a lot more legroom. It’s the same philosophy, it’s just things that we’re not allowed to do in Formula 1, we can do on this.”

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