Adrian Newey Drives His RB17 V10 Up Goodwood Hill For First Time
Formula 1

Adrian Newey Drives His RB17 V10 Up Goodwood Hill For First Time

9 July 2026 2 min readBy F1 News Desk (AI-assisted)

More than four years after his first sketch, Adrian Newey drove Red Bull's RB17 hypercar up the Goodwood hillclimb, calling it 'incredibly special' — a return to the team he left for Aston Martin.

Key Takeaways

  • 1."I think I did my very first sketch for the car over Christmas in 2021, but it's been a long time in gestation." The RB17 is a serious piece of engineering.
  • 2."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," he said, noting it had first run just three weeks earlier.
  • 3."To pull it together and for it to work first time out of the box and be here is very special.

It took more than four years from first sketch to first run, but Adrian Newey finally sat in one of his own designs and drove it in public, pointing the Red Bull RB17 up the Goodwood hillclimb at the Festival of Speed.

Newey left Red Bull for Aston Martin in 2024, so steering the team's new track-only hypercar up the hill carried extra weight. "It's an incredibly special moment. It's been a very long time in the planning," he said afterwards. "I think I did my very first sketch for the car over Christmas in 2021, but it's been a long time in gestation."

The RB17 is a serious piece of engineering. Its naturally aspirated 4.5-litre Cosworth V10 revs to 15,000rpm and produces around 1,000bhp on its own; add the hybrid and the combined figure clears 1,200bhp. At under 900kg, generating close to 1,700kg of downforce, Red Bull expects it to lap near F1 pace. Only 50 will be built, each costing north of €6million.

Newey was refreshingly honest that the car on show was far from finished. "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," he said, noting it had first run just three weeks earlier. "To pull it together and for it to work first time out of the box and be here is very special. I've really enjoyed it actually. It's very special."

He shared driving duties over the weekend with Red Bull's Isack Hadjar, reserve Yuki Tsunoda and Racing Academy driver Alisha Palmowski.

The team used the outing to showcase Red Bull Advanced Technologies, its road-car division. "Goodwood is the perfect place to celebrate what Red Bull Engineering is all about," CEO and team principal Laurent Mekies said. Technical director Rob Gray put the goal plainly: "The ambition was to create a car capable of delivering a level of performance rarely seen outside Formula One."

That target lines the RB17 up against the Aston Martin Valkyrie, a car Newey also influenced, and the Mercedes-AMG One. Red Bull says the hypercar's active aero and suspension will be switched on for full performance running later in 2026. At Goodwood, though, the highlight was simpler: a screaming V10 climbing the hill with the man who drew it at the wheel.