Dieter’s Best of 2022: Newey on Red Bull’s RB17 Hypercar
RacingNews365 Editorial Director Dieter Rencken sat down with Adrian Newey twice in the last year, once to discuss the state of F1 and three months later to learn about RB17, Red Bull’s F1-based hyper-supercar. Looking back on the previous year, Dieter shares Adrian’s stand-out thoughts from each interview.
In the second part of Dieter Rencken’s 2022 chats with Red Bull Chief Technical Officer Adrian Newey, the Briton discusses the ambitious RB17 hypercar project
Part one of Dieter Rencken’s conversations with Adrian Newey, where he discussed the technical challenges surrounding their 2022 car, can be found here.
Newey on the Red Bull RB17 hypercar
DR: You’re a Formula 1 engineer, yet RB17 is aimed at a non-racer niche. Is there a personal connection?
AN: I’ve sketched road cars since I was at university. My first and foremost passion is racing, but I’ve always had an interest in road cars which morphed into the [2010] PlayStation X1. From there we entered into a partnership with Aston Martin to develop Valkyrie, which was designed first and foremost as a road car.
It was a very fruitful partnership, but – by definition – we had to agree on common ground. [RB17] is conceived purely as a Red Bull car where we are clearly our own masters, and it’s conceived first and foremost as a track car.
To follow on from Valkyrie and be involved in something which is the next step, but as a two-seat [track] car is really exciting. I love the conception of the car and trying to get the overall package together. It’s a similar challenge yet a very different challenge to [designing] a single seat Formula 1 car.
