CANNON BULL

Adrian Newey's RB17 hybrid V10 hypercar is at long last (almost) ready Track car, perfection or pointless?

- JASON BARLOW

The RB17 is the fabled creature that has occupied Adrian Newey's thoughts since 2020, but whose origins lie much further back. Way back. Neither a road car nor a competition machine, it's a track only hypercar that marshals almost everything Newey has learned in his 40+ year career, a maximal motor car conceived without constraint, other than self-imposed ones. It's powered by a Red Bull spec, Cosworth made 1,000bhp 4.5-litre V10 that can rev to 15,000rpm, in a car with an overall target weight of 875kg. And it has an e-motor.

First impressions? It looks big and surprisingly long, a spaceship of a thing. It's mesmerising in detail and execution, and there's a clear visual through line to a contemporary F1 car. Imagine a cockpit on a recent Red Bull and you're halfway there. Its side pods are sensational - hell, it's a non-competition car that actually has side pods. It's also a shape that's defined more by what's missing than what's actually there. Porosity, they call it, and there are whole sections of the RB17 that invite intimate hands on investigation. Visualise the turbulent air around the front wheel arches being tidied up, before being redirected under the car and into a tunnel of stunning complexity. There are two fans in there somewhere, too, transforming all this energised air into aero magic. Look, too, at the full width rear wing that's there primarily to extract the air from the diffuser. The name? When COVID-19 pressed the giant pause button, Red Bull never ran an F1 car called RB17. Now the badge has a home.