Christian Horner: RB17 is "all the good F1 stuff they got rid of"
Red Bull boss says firm's new V10 hypercar could be made road-legal and could race at Le Mans
Red Bull Technology boss Christian Horner has hailed his company's new RB17 hypercar as an embodiment of "all the good stuff they got rid of from Formula 1" and says it would be possible to adapt for road use.
Horner said that lead engineer Adrian Newey – who will leave Red Bull at the end of this F1 season – was "unleashed" in creating the RB17, as he did not need to adhere to the usual restrictions.
"There's no FIA constraints and no cost cap, so you can see influences from all these cars over the years. It has an insane amount of performance that even Max Verstappen would struggle to extract," he said.
While similarly conceived hypercar projects from rival F1 teams (the Mercedes-AMG One and Aston Martin Valkyrie) are road-legal, the RB17 has been engineered for track use exclusively from the factory.
When asked if that was representative of those company's larger budgets for non-F1 projects, Horner told Autocar "that was purposefully done" and that "Red Bull isn't an automotive manufacturer", limiting its production abilities and resources for projects outside of motorsport.
"But should somebody wish to do a road conversion on this car," he added, "I'm sure there are several conversion houses that are capable of doing that."
On the prospect of boosting RB17 production beyond the 50 confirmed units or building further hypercars afterwards, Horner said: "This is very much a halo car for us. We don't want to distract from our core competence, which is building grand prix cars.
"With Red Bull Powertrains now building our own engines on site, we felt that building 50 cars over a two-to-three-year period is quite easy for us to slot in the manufacturing capability we have on site without distracting the business.
"That was one thing I was quite keen on: this needs to complement F1, rather than distract in any way."
Interestingly, Horner revealed to Autocar that Red Bull did approach new F1 partner Ford about collaborating on the RB17, but the 5.4-litre V10-engined hypercar was deemed not to "fit with their EV criteria".
"Jim [Farley] would love to drive one," Horner laughed, acknowledging the motorsport leanings of Ford's CEO, but "it didn't really fit with their current lineage".
Nonetheless, Horner is open to the prospect of taking the RB17 racing. Although he isn't "sure which category" the car would contend in at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the possibility hasn't been taken off the table.
"The Valkyrie is going to run at Le Mans next year. If that can happen, it would be amazing to see the RB17 run."
He stopped short, though, of confirming plans for an entry at Le Mans, which would require the RB17 to be heavily reworked to meet the World Endurance Championship's regulations.
As for the owners of the 50 cars that Red Bull will build, Horner wouldn't be drawn on any names but did say the British firm is being "very selective" about who can place a deposit.
Red Bull doesn't want the cars to "sit in collectors' museums", he said, adding that all owners will be supported by a "fully bespoke" track preparation programme when they want to run the car, including delivery of the car and a support team to a track of their choosing.
Horner did say there were some "iconic owners on the ownership list". Celebrity chef and renowned car fanatic Gordon Ramsay was on hand to help reveal the car, and Horner didn't deny that he had put down a deposit.