Newey to finish RB17 hypercar before leaving Red Bull

Asked how the RB17 came about, Horner told Autocar: “Adrian wanted to do a car [for us] back in 2014, and at that point in time, we found a route through that by doing all the design work for the Valkyrie in partnership with Aston Martin.

“Valkyrie is a stunning vehicle and I’m sure it will be a great success, but you’re always learning, whether in Formula 1 or on the advanced technologies side.

“[RBAT] has now existed for close to eight years and there’s an awful lot of knowledge that has been built up in that time. With the budget cap era [in F1], if you want to retain resources there have to be projects that can justify their existence. This is a perfect project utilising the skill sets that we have, so it will complement our Formula 1 activities rather than distract from them.”

According to RBAT technical director Rob Gray, the hypercar will be predominantly manufactured in-house, with items such as glass and gear clusters outsourced.

Gray said: “There’s a lot in common between this car and the Formula 1 car in terms of the general engineering principles used to design it. Most of this car, the core, we are capable of building in-house. That’s why we have such a low volume target.

“We know how to build low-volume vehicles. We don’t want to do mass production.”