New RED BULL RB17! Adrian Newey's Track Hypercar is HERE

It's not every day that you're somewhere as legendary as this, but welcome to the Red Bull Technology Campus here in Milton Keynes, England, where I am surrounded by some of the epic Formula One cars from Red Bull Racing. But that's not what we're here to see today. We are here to see something brand new, something designed by renowned F1 engineer Adrian Newey with Red Bull Advanced Technologies, and that's the car that lurks beneath this cover, the new track hypercar, the RB17. Just wait until you hear the details of what we're about to see. We're going to be joined by Rob Gray, Technical Director here at Red Bull Advanced Technologies, to run through all of the details of this hypercar that will match Formula One lap times with a passenger. The figures are mind-blowing, from the power, the 4.5-litre naturally aspirated V10 that revs to 15,000 rpm, the aerodynamics and the amount of downforce that this offers. But we're about to get that cover pulled back. We're going to take a first look. Hi guys, I'm Shmee. Hello and welcome back to the channel, and welcome to a first look at the RB17. There's going to be a lot to talk about with this car. I mean, look at the silhouette. We have ground effect, aero. We have active aerodynamics, the suspension, the powertrain. There are going to be 50 units built in total of this track hypercar, named the RB17 after the missing car. The RB16 that would normally have been followed up by the 17, due to the delayed regulations in 2021, became the RB16B, leaving the name available for something completely new. Something that I can't wait in a second to actually see in all of its glory. But you know what? Before Rob joins us, let's take a very quick sneak peek. At this moment in time, I've not seen anything here, but let's take a look at this. Oh, that's going to be quite something. Beautiful. Right, well, let's get this cover removed properly. Any moment now. Okay, so let's take the cover off and show you the RB17. Let's take a look at this. Let's reveal it. I haven't seen it yet, but here we go. Goodness me. Wow, wow, wow. That's a pretty good first reaction. That is something to behold. My goodness, there's so many details to take in. Obviously, the aerodynamic work, shapes, design. Talk to us about this. What are we looking at here? What is it? So it's the RB17, which is Red Bull's first in-house hypercar, designed for use on the track only. And it's a hugely powerful, hugely aerodynamic car that's going to give the absolute ultimate last word in performance. First of all, the way it looks. So it's obviously originally driven by the aerodynamicists. So Adrian Newey has completely led the design and obviously is aerodynamicist by trade, but very interested in all other aspects of the car. We then got a styling department who've taken Adrian's shapes and I want to say beautified them, but I probably shouldn't say that. That's actually probably the first impression I'm taking is that the design is beautiful. Yeah. So we're really pleased with the way we've taken aerodynamic shapes, which is obviously not something we do in Formula One, because Formula One, the aerodynamicists, they get the actual shapes they want. Whereas Adrian then works with the stylists on this to tweak his shapes to come up with this, which we're pretty pleased with. And we think, yeah, it looks pretty stunning. It looks genuinely stunning. So when I heard, of course, beforehand that we're talking Formula One level lap times, my impression was that appearance would not be in the question, but the short story is it does look amazing. And obviously there's a lot to go through in terms of specifics, like downforce figures and power. But the first impression is one of just kind of looking through it, negative space everywhere you look and trying to contemplate what it must be like with two people in here, because that's one of the unusual things. This very much built to take two people. And that's because Adrian is very keen that he gets to share the experience with the passenger or the owners get to share the experience with their passenger. It is a narrow cockpit, but we've staggered the seating slightly of the driver and the passenger. So the driver sits very slightly ahead of the passenger, which means that while you've got a very narrow cabin, it's actually pretty comfortable inside and more spacious than similar vehicles have been in the past. At the heart of this then is a V10. Let's talk powertrain for a moment. Okay. Give us the kind of lowdown. So it's a four and a half litre naturally aspirated V10 engine with a 10 into one exhaust. So it's going to sound like an F1 car from kind of a very early 2000s. That's a very good thing. Yeah, it's a very good thing. I mean, I remember going to my first F1 test, which was with, well, actually with the Jaguar team that then became the Rebel team. And when you hear those engines start up, you can actually, you feel them in your chest. When we went to the V8, they got a bit, the noise changed and they just hurt your ears. And when we went to the V6s, you barely knew if they were actually running. So yes, we've gone for what we think is really the best of the Formula One engines. Yeah, it's going to sound amazing. And rev to 15,000 rpm. So that was a fair engineering challenge. We've partnered with Cosworth on the engine. So we've got those guys working on it and that engine will be running on the dyno later this summer, all things being equal. Yeah, we're into the exciting phase of seeing real bits of metal out and about. So the engine obviously sits in the heart of the car, but it's also hybridised. There's an electric motor in addition to that. So the engine is augmented by a hybrid system. So we get about 1,000 horsepower from the combustion engine and we add another 200 with the hybrid system. Now the hybrid system's very much had to pay for its place on the car in that it's only on there because it makes the car go faster in the simulation world. And so one of the ways we're able to make the hybrid system more valuable is to make it cover some other functions of the car that we can delete some components. So for example, we don't have a specific reverse gear on the car because you can reverse using the electric motor. We also use the hybrid motor to do the starting the car and also as an alternator to generate power for the other systems on the car. So it makes the car more efficient in terms of its design and it saves some weight in other areas and that helps the hybrid system actually add performance. That's a really interesting topic because it's easy to think, oh, why are you adding a battery and a motor and that kind of thing? But once you consider all of the weight savings that come as a result of having that in here, not only do you get presumably earlier torque and even more power. Yeah, the torque infill and ease of drivability is another big benefit of having the e-motor. So it definitely makes it more user-friendly. So power to weight then, because the total weight comes in at 900. Total weight is sub 900 kilos. Sub 900 kilos. And then power is at 1200 horsepower. So it's a pretty healthy ratio. Healthy for sure. It's going to be ballistic. And ballistic in straight line terms, it's going to be ballistic. Rear-driven. Gearbox? Gearbox is a sort of F1 style six-speed paddle shift box. It's not actually technically an instant shift box. It's not dual clutch because dual clutches are very heavy. But it uses some of the Formula One tech to give you a very, very fast but more conventional style shift. So will there be different power modes, driving modes? Absolutely. We haven't quite named them yet, but it will be along the lines of what we do in Formula One is you have your practice modes, your quali mode and your race mode. So it'll be similar to that, where we have different levels of power, different levels of energy recovery, because you can run the energy recovery system in different modes to get more power out of it, sort of non-sustainable mode we'd call it. So you're using all the energy over one lap and you're not worrying about topping up your battery as you go. So yeah, lots of different modes and lots of adaptability. So we're aiming for the car to be really accessible, even to people who are maybe not at the same level as your Max Verstappen to this world. I'm sure. So you will be able to put it into a really user-friendly mode and to get to grips with the car in the first instance. We're also offering simulator training to all of the customers so that they'll get the first drive of the car while actually in the virtual world. And that'll be a good way of easing into it and learning how all the different functionality works and understanding the car. And so yeah, so lots of different performance modes come with that. One of the things that you immediately notice, especially when you stand at the front of the car, is how there's a lot of aero going on, a lot of negative space, a very beautiful skin over the top of it. But can you explain a little bit more about the clever aerodynamics that are happening here? Sure. I mean, the phrase you use of a skin over the top of it is interesting because I think the more you look at it, the more you actually see quite a lot of aspects of the Formula One cars that we're surrounded by that have come into this. And one, slightly on the look side of things, but one of the areas that I think is worth highlighting is the line through the side pod where you very much, you can see a lot of Formula One influence coming through here. And so yeah, the aerodynamics in general though, so obviously downforce is one of our key performance drivers to get the Formula One levels of performance that we're aiming for. So we have key aerodynamic generating parts of obviously front wing and rear wing, but then also the diffuser. And if you look from the back of the car, you'll see that you can, the diffuser is pretty enormous. Yeah. And so an awful lot of air coming under the car and generating downforce. So under this skin, you mentioned the side pod side and when, style and design, and when you look at it, you really do start to see that. It's very much the carbon fibre monocoque on which it's based. The scale of those diffuser tunnels at the back. Quite sizable. Just taking that in. And it's also, I think we need to have a little run over some of the figures because the downforce numbers are quite frankly mind-blowing. Yeah. So all of this aerodynamics is basically building up to giving us about 1700 kilos of downforce at sort of around 160 kilometres an hour. That figure needs repeating again, 160 kilometres an hour, about 100 miles an hour. You already have nearly double the weight of the car in downforce. Yes. Yes. And so that's been a big focus, getting as much downforce at low speed as possible, because that's how you're going to go faster. Now, we get to the point that we don't want any more downforce that are above that speed because we get to the point that the tyres will become overloaded. And so we've then employed active aerodynamics to actually stop the downforce increasing. The downforce doesn't reduce, but it just levels off. And so we have an active front wing, we have an active rear wing and we have an active diffuser, all of which allow us to limit that downforce above that speed. Okay. So that's quite an interesting approach to it because of course, in many road cars, when you're talking downforce figures, the normal figure that's quoted is that it's Vmax, you know, 300 kilometres an hour, double the speed we're talking here. But once you go over that speed, it will trim out aero to keep the car, I guess, load on the tyres and that type of thing. Yeah, keep the overall load on the car to the level we want it to be. And also, there is a compromise there because you want to design the car to be as lightweight as possible, but obviously the level of load that you're putting through the car influences how heavy you have to make the parts to withstand that load. And so, yeah, by having that limit, we get to design everything to be as light as possible. And that's one of the ways we end up with the weight being where it is. So being around the front of it, of course, the front wing is hanging down literally beneath the nose of the car itself and very much allowing airflow through. Yeah. Coolers, radiators sit in the side pods? Yes, you can just about see the inlet for the cooler through the suspension aperture at the front of the side pod. And then the coolers sit on the sides of the monocoque in the same way that they're mounted on the Formula One car. Once it's run over all of the suspension, the pushrod set up there just looks... Yeah. It looks pretty cool the way it does. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there is an element of... There's definitely an element of styling that's gone into the car, but as I mentioned, it's the iterative process of making sure that the styling doesn't knock on negatively to the aerodynamic performance. One topic to discuss, wheels and tyres. Because, of course, we're looking at a slick here. I believe that's developed specifically for the car, right? Yeah. So we have a program with Michelin. They're developing several tyres for the car. So the slick tyres that you see on the car at the moment, and then there'll be a confidential tyre. So a tyre that Michelin will only let you access if they're there to support. Okay. And that's how you get the absolute last performance out of the car. And then there'll actually be a treaded tyre for wet use and for use if you want a more friendly characteristic to the car. So if you're really building up, then maybe you want to start with that tyre. So you mentioned building up to it. I think that's an interesting topic, right? Because to have the skill to handle a 1,200 horsepower, 900 kilo car with 1,700 kilos of downforce, there's an instinct that says to drive this, you need to be max. You need to be like F1 world champion. But presumably you don't have to dive in at the deep end. You don't have to start. No, absolutely not. So there's lots of settings you can do. You can change the global balance to give you a bit more understeer everywhere, for example. It will have traction control. It will have ABS. So you can set all the systems to really look after you, so that when you drive it first, you're in a setup that's pretty user-friendly. And then as you get more experience and your driving skills and your experience build up, then you can start turning the car up and exploring, getting closer to the edges of the envelope. Start scaring yourself a little bit more. Yeah. But I think it should be a really enjoyable process. I mean, Adrian's likened it in the past to playing golf, for example, where you're working on your skill level. And so it's seen as an enjoyable facet of the ownership experience. Okay, that makes sense. Do you need a team or can you just turn up with the car? You can just turn up with the car. So, I mean, we're conscious that the majority of people buying these cars have some sort of a team of people who look after their collections already, but we're very much engineering this. So hypothetically, if it's in your garage, you can pop out on a Sunday morning, you can fire it up yourself, you can load it onto your trailer, off you go to Silverstone, do some laps, come home. So yeah, it's intended to be very simple to use. Sounds like a pretty mega experience though. Yeah. Wow, this is also absolutely fascinating to see some of the behind the scenes where this began. So really, we just got some of the early drawings from Adrian and I think the top drawing there, that's dated 7th of January 2021. So I think he started looking at this in around December 2020. And it really just his early concept drawings of what he wanted the car to be. Then the drawing below is actually come from our stylists. So we've got a couple of Royal College of Art graduates who've been working hard on this and they very much take Adrian's concept and then they try to smooth them, beautify them and give the real sort of visual impact. And then what we do is we take, obviously Adrian's original drawings go through the CFD process to assess the aerodynamic performance. Then once they've been modified by the stylists, we then run through that CFD process again to make sure that in the tidying up of those surfaces, we've not lost anything aerodynamically. And if necessary, you go back around the loop. So you end up with something that's both beautiful and aerodynamically incredibly efficient. Makes sense. And then to see, also, this is really, really interesting because to see a little bit under the skin and how closely this is almost derived from F1 technology, right? Yeah, sure. So I mean, looking at that picture, you really see that under the skin, it is pretty much the same layout as an F1 car all the way from front impact structure, steering, front suspension, composite monocoque, radiators mounted on the sides. We differ slightly in that we have a sort of a subframe around the engine and we've done that so that we can semi-stress the engine rather than fully hard bolting it to the back of the chassis. And that's been done just to make it a little bit quieter in the cabin and give us a better quality of noise in the cabin. Really, just because we don't want it to be too tiring for people to be using for a decent period of time. Yeah, makes sense. And then I also spot here some side pod storage. Yeah, there's some side pod storage. I think it will be sufficient for a couple of race helmets and overalls, just all the bits that you might want to take to the track. So it's just there. Keep them in the car, they're ready to go. Keep it all together and then you don't forget anything. Especially with two people. I mean, just seeing this is amazing. Then a view of the engine and the rear section actually. So this is just showing how this is an RB16 F1 gearbox. So that's from four years ago. And then this is the RB17 gearbox. So it's showing very much the internals of the gearbox very much come from a Formula 1 car. But then you can see how we've extended that structure under the engine to give that degree of isolation. Heading back over then. We haven't really spoken yet about a couple of things. So crash safety side of it. Obviously, you mentioned it's got the Formula 1 style safety structure. Yes. I mean, I mentioned Formula 1 style safety, but actually, from a safety point of view, we've really focused more on what you do on Le Mans cars. So Le Mans hypercars. So we've sort of used that as the basis of our safety scheme for the car. So we've got a front impact structure that actually would meet the LMH regulations. Same on the sides and same on the rear. And then the roll hoop, again, is designed to LMH specifications. Now, this is not saying that we're intending to go to Le Mans before you ask. Next question was coming. Safety wise, we felt that was a very sensible place to be because you have to define something that you're happy to stand behind. And so making a car like this as safe as a Le Mans hypercar, we felt was a good place to start. Will you be, when customers are out running, safety and obviously support is a thing. You'll have days for owners of the cars to go to? Absolutely. So there's a whole sort of customer journey planned around the car as well, where we're planning track days for the car for the owners. And actually, it starts before that. So some of the customers have already been here and driven early prototypes of the car in the simulator, for example. Not many. It's sort of very early days on that. But we've started the program so that people really feel they can be involved in the development of the car as it goes forwards. And then that will roll into social events, but then obviously focus on track days when the cars are delivered. I mean, presumably at some of the greatest circuits around the world. That's absolutely the intention. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we have some home circuits that we particularly like, Silverstone and Austria. But then other places we really want to go with it, there's a long list. And yeah, we'll have drivers on hand, we'll have support team on hand, we'll have engineers on hand to help the customers get the most out of their car and make sure that they're running as they should be. And then in terms of driving, ride height, suspension? So it's an active system that allows us to keep the car very flat on track, that has to keep the aero platform very stable. And so aerodynamics, you can get the best out of aerodynamics to have that performance level. It also means that we can vary the ride height. So there will be different modes that allow us to put the ride height up and down. And yeah, that's the key to it really. I guess I should probably give you some of my feedback on this. A project that I've been following for a number of years, the RB17, which is very much a celebration as well of Adrian Newey and the success that he's had. If you look back at his career, right, he's won world championships with three different teams, with seven different drivers, 12 constructors' titles, 13 drivers' titles in the Formula One World Championship, and of course, many of those with Red Bull Racing. So to be able to undertake something completely new. Now, of course, there was the project in collaboration with Aston Martin that became Valkyrie, the AMRB 001. But once Aston Martin became an F1 team and Red Bull Racing, of course, kind of separated, it opened the door for a new take on this, to undergo a new project, a project which is very much a hero piece for Red Bull Advanced Technologies, for the team that's been working on this, to create something that doesn't really exist in the market because it's not a track version of a road car. This isn't like, you know, when Ferrari will release a new road hypercar and make a track version. This is completely built for the absolute in performance. It is completely built to be the pinnacle of what it can be. Now, of course, that does carry a price tag. It is 5.75 million pounds plus taxes. But I think the idea behind that is why stop short of being able to make the very best, go all the way with it, to make a project that can sit here as a halo for the brand, whether that turns into a hugely positive financial result at the end of the day is a different story, but certainly to create something along the way. Now, there's the interesting topic of conversation with regards to it being a two-passenger vehicle, because, of course, if you took away the second seat, it would be slightly lighter. It would be even faster. The Aero would have an even smaller cabin cockpit to be able to go around. But the idea is then to be able to share that experience. And I can tell you from my own outings, I've been fortunate enough to have that can help both with giving somebody the ride of their life, but also being able to learn, having an instructor to teach you even more, being able to understand more of what it's about. Now, if I was to read between the lines a little bit as well, the fact that you have side pods with some small luggage space, and the fact that you have actually a front nose lifter as well, perhaps you could somehow find a way as well, if you've purchased one of these, to get some plates on it and drive it on the road. Could you imagine that? Now, what we're looking at today is the styling model. Of course, there are going to be a few changes, some small details with the lights, for example, and some additional Aero elements that will be revised ahead of the very final version of RB17. But this is what's being presented to the world. This is the car that you have now seen being launched. One of, well, the 50 full production cars that will arrive, all of which will be built to that same specification. And to learn a little bit more about this as well, if you think about it, in Formula 1, there are updates and new parts being deployed all the time. Whereas for this type of project, at some point you have to lock that final specification. That's what it's going to be commence the road cars. Of course, carbon fibre bodywork, it will be possible to have it painted in any colour. I'm sure there will be exposed carbon fibre bodywork variants as well. But this is way beyond what I kind of expected. I mean, you've heard the lap times it's going to be chasing and we'll find out if those do get attempted at some point in the future. But I didn't expect it to look so beautiful as well. I expected a car that was going to be much rougher around the edges in the pursuit of that performance without being able to bring in the design to it as well. So lots of different options, different things that we're going to find out more about down the line and learn more about the programme as well. And hey, maybe one day I find myself lucky enough to hop on board to experience a little bit more about it. It'll be interesting to see where the cars do end up. No doubt, if you are a Formula 1 driver, either past or present, or maybe even future, that's probably the one to experience in absolute anger. I'm intrigued to find out more as well about the interior, about the apertures, the doors as they open up. But for the time being, what a thing to be here at Red Bull's Technology Campus and to take a first look at this, the new RB17, the missing RB, now born. And it's here, and it's going to be very, very impressive when this hits the tarmac. A big thank you to Rob for his time to show us around it today. A big thank you for the team making today's opportunity possible to come and share this with you. I hope you've been able to learn something about it and take in all of the details as well. So thank you very much for watching. This is the RB17. Bring on the future. That's it for now. Thanks for watching. Cheers.