Red Bull RB17: £5m-rated road car’s release date is confirmed

The RB17 will be the brand’s first-ever hypercar and will cost £5m.

The design remains a closely-guarded secret.

But we know that Adrian Newey, the F1 team’s legendary designer, has been the mastermind of the RB17.

The opportunity to create a road car was part of the reason Newey opted to remain at Red Bull.

He previously helped create the Aston Martin Valkyrie hypercar.

Only 50 will be released when the RB17 is finally unveiled, and most are already sold.

F1 team principal Christian Horner has now told Sky Sports that the RB17 will be available in 2024.

Horner told Autocar about the RB17: “Adrian wanted to do a car [for us] back in 2014, and at that point in time, we found a route through that by doing all the design work for the Valkyrie in partnership with Aston Martin.

“Valkyrie is a stunning vehicle and I’m sure it will be a great success, but you’re always learning, whether in Formula 1 or on the advanced technologies side.

“[RBAT] has now existed for close to eight years and there’s an awful lot of knowledge that has been built up in that time. 

“With the budget cap era [in F1], if you want to retain resources there have to be projects that can justify their existence. 

“This is a perfect project utilising the skill sets that we have, so it will complement our Formula 1 activities rather than distract from them.”

Red Bull Advanced Technologies technical director Rob Gray added: “There’s a lot in common between this car and the Formula 1 car in terms of the general engineering principles used to design it. Most of this car, the core, we are capable of building in-house. That’s why we have such a low volume target.

“We know how to build low-volume vehicles. We don’t want to do mass production.”

He confirmed the RB17 will possess 150bhp, and added: “We want to use the hybrid to complement the internal combustion engine, rather than dominate it.”