The more we hear about the Aston Martin and Red Bull Racing collaboration, the better, faster, and more extreme it sounds. This week in the Wall Street Journal, designer Adrian Newey sat down with Dan Neil and revealed some new details about the hypercar.
The first is that this will be an extremely rare car. Aston will only make 150 cars for the road, and an additional 25 for the track. The car will cost nearly $4 million Canadian when it arrives, and it will not arrive until early 2019. The new model is devoid of wings, but excruciating attention to detail on the body and undertray mean that the track version will generate 1,800 kg of downforce. Nearly double the 1,000 kg weight of the car. That means that it could drive on the roof of a tunnel. The low weight is nearly as impressive a feat as the aero, being nearly 400 kg lighter than the already svelte McLaren P1.
At the wheels, the car will have active suspension that can lower the car for optimal handling. It will even know when it is on a track, and use that knowledge to pull itself down even closer to the ground. Of the aerodynamics, project engineer David King says "nothing remotely like it has ever been tried on a road car". Claims are for up to four g of lateral acceleration, putting nearly 50 kg of force on the driver's neck. That type of cornering capability is unheard of in a road car.
All of this makes for a package that is nothing less than stunning. But more important to the wing-hating design team is the lack of tacked-on body baubles. That means that the shape is as impressive as the performance should be.
The final interesting detail is that according to Aston chief designer Marek Reichman, "this technology can be applied to all cars, absolutely." The wind tunnel advances mean not just more downforce, but significantly less drag. Pushed along by a planned 1,000 hp V12, the aero work and light weight all makes for a very fast hypercar, but could also bring improved fuel economy, quicker high-speed acceleration, and massive cornering grip.
