Aston Martin, Red Bull Team Up on F1-Like Super Hybrid

LONDON – Aston Martin teams up with Red Bull Racing in an ambitious joint engineering project to deliver one of the fastest accelerating and arguably most uncompromising road cars to date – the AM-RB 001.

Revealed as a fullsize styling model here, the radical 2-seater aims to propel Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing to the head of the hypercar ranks with a combination of cutting-edge underfloor aerodynamics claimed to deliver “unprecedented levels of downforce” along with “boundary-pushing performance” from a mid-mounted Cosworth-developed V-12.

The engine is said to develop up to 1,000 hp as part of a secretive gasoline-electric hybrid system – details of which are yet to be revealed.

Between 99 and 150 road-going versions of the AM-RB 001, as the new coupe is codenamed, are slated for production. Pricing has yet to be disclosed, though Aston Martin President and CEO Andy Palmer says the new range-topping model will cost £2 million-£3 million ($3.2 million-$4.8 million).

Despite the breathtaking price, Palmer indicates the new Aston Martin, which will ditch its early working title for a name beginning with the letter V, in line with the British sportscar maker’s tradition, already is sold out. Deliveries won’t begin until 2018.

“Without even showing the car officially, we have received 370 very clear requests to be on the waiting list,” Palmer says. “Aston Martin customers who have previously bought recent limited-production models such as the One-77 or Vulcan are guaranteed a place.”

Additionally, Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing plan to produce a limited run of 25 racetrack versions of the AM-RB 001, leading to speculation the low-slung British hypercar could see action at the Le Mans 24-hour race, possibly under the Garage 56 regulations that support one-off developmental prototypes.

The brainchild of Red Bull Racing’s chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, the AM-RB 001 is described as a bespoke car that, in limited track form, will be capable of lapping the Silverstone race circuit in England at the same pace as a modern-day F1 race car.

“I’ve long harbored a desire to design a road car,” says Newey, who has masterminded the engineering of some of the most successful F1 cars over the past 30 years. “The formation of Red Bull Advanced Technologies brought me a step closer to realizing that ambition, but I believed we should work with an automotive manufacturer, and Aston Martin was at the top of my list.”

The engineering partnership to conceive, develop and produce the AM-RB 001 has been led by Newey and Aston Martin’s Design Director Marek Reichman.

“My challenge has been expressing the AM-RB 001’s extraordinary performance and the unique way it delivers that performance,” Reichman says. “Its style reflects its revolutionary nature, while possessing the format that makes it unmistakably an Aston Martin.”

Reflecting its ties to F1 through the influence of Red Bull Racing, the AM-RB 001 is built on a monocoque structure boasting the latest in carbon-fiber construction techniques in a move officials from the British-based F1 team suggest allows it to hit “super aggressive” weight targets.

Newey’s influence in the design of the new car clearly is evident within the underbody, which incorporates full-length diffusers and wing elements to channel air underneath the cockpit in a process reminiscent of the ground-effect aerodynamics featured on earlier F1 race cars. Further wind-cheating measures are seen in the absence of door mirrors. They are replaced by rear-facing cameras used to project an image onto a screen.

While Aston Martin is yet to reveal the 2-seater’s interior, Reichman confirms it will adopt a reclined driving position similar to that of a modern day F1 car, in which the driver’s feet rest at a similar height to the torso.

Smallest V-12 on Road

At the heart of the new joint-venture hypercar is a naturally aspirated gasoline engine. The V-12 is mounted in a mid-rear engine layout – making the AM-RB 001 the first road-going Aston Martin to position its engine behind the cabin. The powerplant has “the potency to achieve a 1:1 power-to-weight ratio,” the automaker says, meaning it has been conceived to deliver 1 hp per kilogram of curb weight.

Few details surrounding the V-12 have been revealed, although Palmer says it will be the smallest capacity V-12 to be used in a road car.

To achieve the lofty power-to-weight goal, Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing have mated the engine to an energy-recovery system in a gasoline-electric hybrid powertrain – again a first for the automaker, which up until now has held firm to traditional gasoline engines as a means of propulsion. The setup should be similar to that used by the most potent of the AM-RB 001’s keenest hypercar rivals, the Ferrari LaFerrari, McLaren P1 and Porsche 918.

The ERS allows electrical energy created on a lifted throttle and under braking to be stored in a battery and then used to boost performance via an electric motor when required. Nothing is official just yet, although executives at the AM-RB 001’s unveiling hint the hybrid system would offer at least 1,000 hp and some 738 lb.-ft. (1,000 Nm) of torque.

The engine’s exhaust exits from the center of the rear bodywork and blows air on to the rear wing in a process similar to the blown diffuser used in F1 prior to its ban earlier this decade.

Channeling the car’s heady reserves to the road is a newly designed gearbox conceived by Newey and developed at Red Bull Advanced Technologies at its base in Milton Keynes. The sports coupe, rumored to offer sequential manual shifting, is said to incorporate the electric motor used by the hybrid system within its housing.

The chassis draws on Newey’s F1 expertise with double wishbones complete with push rods – those at the rear mounted directly to the gearbox. It is claimed to incorporate an active suspension providing constant ride height control to make the most of the F1-grade aerodynamics.

Assembly is planned to take place on a dedicated line at Aston Martin’s existing factory in Gaydon, with the first road-going examples set to reach customers sometime in 2018.

The assembly will be carried out by the same team from Aston Martin’s bespoke Q division that is responsible for the Aston Martin Vulcan. Sales will be limited to selected markets.

“It’s difficult at this volume to homologate the car to meet regulations in all our existing markets,” says Palmer, who adds the AM-RB 001 likely will be produced in left-hand-drive form only.

Details as to when the even more radical track version of the new British hypercar will be pressed into action are yet to be made public, although suggestions are Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing already are planning an assault on the Le Mans in 2019.

Meanwhile, the numeric component in the name of the AM-RB 001 has prompted speculation that it could lead to further road-car collaborations between the two companies. Although they stop short of confirming such plans, Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing officials hint a less flamboyant mid-engine supercar could follow if the initial joint venture proves a success.

If given a production greenlight, a follow up AM-RB002 model could be expected to challenge supercars such as the McLaren 12C, Lamborghini Huracan and Ferrari 488 GTB.