Red Bull F1 boss Christian Horner admits Max Verstappen struggle with Adrian Newey hypercar

Verstappen, Horner, social — Photo: © IMAGO

Red Bull

Horner admits Verstappen performance STRUGGLE with Red Bull

Adrian Newey's latest Red Bull masterpiece will be a handful to drive

Rhys Thomas

Saturday 13 July 2024 12:57 Updated: 19:55

Red Bull team principal Christian Horner has admitted even Max Verstappen could have issues mastering the newly-unveiled RB17 hypercar.

The machine was revealed at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Friday, and is designed by technical guru Adrian Newey.

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Newey has been masterminding Red Bull cars since his arrival at the team in 2006, including Verstappen's record-breaking 2023 challenger, the RB19.

As his final act before bringing the curtain down on his Red Bull era in early 2025, Newey has been working on the £5million hypercar, of which just 50 will be made.

The Red Bull RB17 was unveiled at the Goodwood Festival of Speed

'Even Max Verstappen would struggle' in RB17

With Newey having to mould most of his designs to the strict regulations of F1, the hypercar project presented a nice change of engineering freedom for the Red Bull legend.

Powered by a V10 engine, it has been described by Red Bull as a two-seater F1 car, 'showcasing F1 levels of performance combined with indulgent luxury'.

The hypercar is said to generate nearly two tonnes of downforce and has a top speed exceeding 350kph, as well as an energy recovery system.

On the design, Horner told Autocar: "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"

"Red Bull isn't an automotive manufacturer… But should somebody wish to do a road conversion on this car. I'm sure there are several conversion houses that are capable of doing that" he added.

Max Verstappen has mastered numerous Newey designs - how about the RB17?

"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, it 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."

Having extracted the utmost from almost all of the Newey-designed cars he has driven, Verstappen was surely already keen to get behind the wheel, but Horner's challenging comments may have given him further motivation.

Presenting the RB17 😍 Designed by Adrian Newey and Red Bull Advanced Technologies ✍️

Built on 20 years of #F1 innovation, the RB17 has over 1,000 horsepower and a V10 engine 💪 pic.twitter.com/WS53k958Pe
— Oracle Red Bull Racing (@redbullracing) July 12, 2024