Adrian Newey-Designed RB17 Hypercar is Faster Than Max Verstappen at Spa

Newsweek

a day ago

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources.
Red Bull's RB17 track-focused hypercar is faster than a Formula One car at the Belgian Grand Prix's Spa-Francorchamps circuit on the simulator. This has been claimed by the technical director of Red Bull Advanced Technologies, Rob Gray. The RB17 beat the time set by Max Verstappen in his RB21 F1 car during the 2025 Belgian GP qualifying.
Designed by one of F1's legendary design gurus and Red Bull Racing's former chief technical director, Adrian Newey, the RB17 has been crafted to deliver F1-level lap times, offering drivers the feeling of racing a Grand Prix challenger.
Coming to the heart of the matter, the RB17 is powered by a 4.5-liter V10 engine producing 1,200 HP, all of which is sent to the rear wheels. Weighing just under 900 kilograms, the RB17 packs a monumental power-to-weight ratio, helping it reach top speeds of up to 350 km/h. Only 50 units of the hypercar will be on sale, making it highly exclusive.
While the RB17 is made to match F1 performance levels, Gray revealed that it is faster than a Grand Prix car around Spa on the simulator. Speaking on the Talking Bull podcast with Nicola Hume and former F1 driver David Coulthard, Gray opened up on the lap times of the RB17 when asked by Coulthard about what the car was capable of on slick tires. He said:
Adrian Newey poses for a photo with the newly unveiled Red Bull RB17 hypercar during Day Two of the Goodwood Festival of Speed at Goodwood on July 12, 2024 in Chichester, England.
Adrian Newey poses for a photo with the newly unveiled Red Bull RB17 hypercar during Day Two of the Goodwood Festival of Speed at Goodwood on July 12, 2024 in Chichester, England."In the virtual world, it is faster than an F1 car. In Spa, I think they did a 1:38, something like that. Um, so yeah, incredibly fast."
For comparison, Max Verstappen secured P4 with a lap time of 1:40.903 during the Belgian GP qualifying session this year. Lando Norris, who secured pole position, set his fastest lap time of 1:40.562.
That makes the RB17 around two seconds faster than an F1 car, which in the world of racing is a lot of performance. However, the car has yet to prove its prowess off the simulator on a real Grand Prix circuit.
Newey, who designed Red Bull's dominant RB19 of the current ground effect era that helped the team win 21 out of 22 races in 2023, said that the RB17 was a project that allowed him to do something different from his routine F1 work. He said:
"I guess there's a number of years I've been in F1 that to keep myself fresh and avoid going stale, I feel sometimes I need other projects to kind of give inspiration and so forth so that when I'm in F1, I'm not feeling as if I'm always doing the same thing.
"The [Aston Martin] Valkyrie was the first project in that mould, then I kind of started to think what can be the next project? I didn't want to simply do Valkyrie 2, it had to be something different. I pondered that for quite a while."
He added:
"I started to think, 'Okay, could we come up with a car which would be accessible to drivers with relatively limited track experience and they could then grow with the car?'
"The model I kind of pictured in my own head, if you like, is say you decide you want to start playing golf, then you go to a golf club, hit a few balls and the balls go flying everywhere, but you enjoy it. Then you think, 'Right, I want to get better at this', so you employ a caddie, coach...
"Part of the enjoyment is playing the game, and part of it is [helping] yourself to become better at the game, and this is trying to take that same model."