Adrian Newey has spent three decades drawing the fastest cars in Formula 1. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed, he finally got to drive one of his own creations himself, taking the Red Bull RB17 up the famous hillclimb for its first public run.
The track-only hypercar — priced at more than €6million, with just 50 to be built — is powered by a naturally aspirated 4.5-litre Cosworth V10 that screams to 15,000rpm and makes around 1,000bhp on its own, with a hybrid system pushing the combined output past 1,200bhp. It weighs under 900kg and generates roughly 1,700kg of downforce, figures Red Bull says should put its lap times in the ballpark of a current F1 car.
For Newey, who left Red Bull for Aston Martin in 2024, the Goodwood run doubled as a reunion with the team he spent nearly two decades transforming.
"It's an incredibly special moment. It's been a very long time in the planning," Newey said after the climb. "I think I did my very first sketch for the car over Christmas in 2021, but it's been a long time in gestation."
He was candid about how raw the car still is. "The active suspension isn't working, the fans are only cooling not generating downforce as well, some of the other active systems aren't calibrated yet," Newey explained. The RB17, he said, had only turned a wheel for the first time three weeks earlier.
"To pull it together and for it to work first time out of the box and be here is very special," he added. "I've really enjoyed it actually. It's very special."
Red Bull framed the appearance as a statement of intent for its road-car arm, Red Bull Advanced Technologies. "Goodwood is the perfect place to celebrate what Red Bull Engineering is all about," team principal and CEO Laurent Mekies said.
Rob Gray, technical director at Red Bull Advanced Technologies, set out the brief behind the project. "The ambition was to create a car capable of delivering a level of performance rarely seen outside Formula One," he said.
That ambition puts the RB17 squarely up against the Aston Martin Valkyrie — the last hypercar Newey helped shape — and the Mercedes-AMG One. The symbolism was not lost on those watching it run at Goodwood: Newey influenced the Valkyrie before this, and his final Red Bull project now stands to be measured against it.
Full performance testing will follow later in the year, when Red Bull says the RB17's active aero and suspension will finally be switched on in dedicated track environments. For now, the sight and sound of a 15,000rpm V10 hauling up the Goodwood hill — with its designer at the wheel — was the story of the weekend.
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*Originally published on [Newsformula One](https://newsformula.one/article/newey-finally-drives-his-rb17-v10-at-goodwood-special-moment). Visit for full coverage.*