ONE OF the theories doing the rounds of some in the darker reaches of the car industry is that the technical partnership between Aston Martin Lagonda and Red Bull Racing could result in more than the promised astounding road and track car the likes of which have never been seen before.
The hypercar project, carrying the prosaic name AM-RB 001, will not only give Aston Martin its next headline-busting meal ticket to develop much-needed future road cars for its dealers’ showrooms, it may have the potential to solve Red Bull Racing’s most pressing problem; from where does it get its next engine?
AM-RB 001
The former powerhouse team is now running in the F1 midfield because it missed out on a seat at the F1 engine table when the music stopped last year and now has the task of finding a competitive engine.
But there are those who are wondering if the powerplant that the partnership will clearly need to design to energise their mid-engine hypercar – intended to be “the fastest car on the planet” – could, in fact, be developed with Red Bull’s pressing engine requirements in mind.
There are those who think that the Aston Martin project could help secure a more competitive powertrain for Red Bull, post 2018, when the hypercar goes on sale.
Aston Martin makes some of the biggest, torquiest, most powerful V12 engines ever seen, but the little carmaker will not be making engines of this kind for Red Bull any time soon. V12s are illegal in F1 right now although a smaller, modular version of the V12 might work for them.
Despite its present parlous financial position, Aston Martin may be able to, by way of revenues generated by the AM-RB 001, provide the funding and scale for the design and manufacture of Red Bull’s future F1 engines. Red Bull could share in the development of the engine for the AM-RB 001 and, using its share of cash from the sale of the cars, also fund on-going F1 engine programs.
There is no suggestion that Aston Martin is in any position to support the Red Bull team as a sponsor. Aston’s annual revenues totalled just £468 million ($A891 million) in 2014 and the bottom line was a loss of £72 million thanks to some heavy research and development on new models.
But the new hypercar does raise the possibility of some strong revenues for both Aston Martin and Red Bull, depending on how the two companies have structured the hypercar partnership deal.
First, the numbers. Aston Martin is planning to make 100 of the AM-RB 001 model, but has not revealed the price yet.
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner (left) and Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer making the announcement at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne of a new co-developed hypercar. But what of the potential of a new power plant from the hypercar as the basis of an F1 engine for Red Bull?
The company’s first hypercar, last year’s track-only Vulcan, was priced at £1.8 million ($3.4 million) each for the projected production run of 24. This was comfortably above the price of the 2011 road-legal One-77 model, which cost £1.15 million for each of the 77 cars made/to be made.
Given this level of price escalation, plus the attraction of being designed by Adrian Newey, perhaps the greatest Formula One race car designer of all time, the price of the AM-RB 001 is likely to comfortably exceed £2 million ($A3.8 million) and could approach £2.6 million ($A5 million).
For comparative purposes, a Bugatti Veyron costs around €2.3 million ($A3.4 million).
If Aston Martin can sell 100 examples of the hypercar, it will generate revenues of around $500 million. That’s equivalent to a full year’s revenue from selling regular Aston Martin road cars.
While there are very many parts of such multi-million-dollar cars that are unique, it is fair to assume that the profit margin on these ego-boosters is still pretty lucrative. In fact, in this part of the market, higher prices tend to attract longer queues.
Assume the profit margin on the new hypercar was $2.5 million on each car, that provides the partners with $250 million to develop and build the cars and you would expect that would include engine development for a car designed to capture the imaginations of enthusiasts worldwide. It will need to be some engine.
And if the $250 million profit was split evenly between Aston Martin and Red Bull – that would give Red Bull a handy $125 million to continue refining an Aston Martin derived F1 powertrain, starting in the second half of 2018, in addition to the funds that Red Bull already spends each year on engine development for the team.
Red Bull already makes significant contributions to the Renault F1 engine program. The racing team is contracted to Renault to the end of 2016. Despite this, it has stepped up its spending in recent times.
In 2015 Red Bull hired Mario Illien, founder of the famous Ilmor race engine company, to help Renault with the development of its powertrain, specifically the internal combustion part of it.
This led to a lot of resentment at the French company’s engine development centre at Viry-Chatillon, just outside Paris, and to last year’s very public deterioration in relations between Renault and Red Bull.
The upshot was that the engine in this year’s Red Bull racers is branded TAG-Heuer and is based on the engine block of the Renault V6. Everything else is new.
Red Bull has also been investing in designing and manufacturing part of the energy recovery system that is an integral part of Formula One powertrains at present.
If the company can create a healthy revenue source in a dalliance with Aston Martin, it might be possible for the team to fund the development of a new and exclusive powertrain that could be made by Ilmor or another manufacturing contractor.
Red Bull might even be brave enough to recoup some of the investment by selling such engines to customer teams, confident in the knowledge that its chassis should always give the team an edge over those rivals.
By Ian Porter and John Mellor
Hypercar will keep Adrian Newey inside the Red Bull tent
Comment by Ian Porter
When you have a superstar designer on your hands the main task is to keep them challenged and engaged lest their attention wavers.
That’s why the plan for Aston Martin and Red Bull to build a hypercar makes sense because it addresses the perennial issue of finding things outside Formula One to keep the team’s chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, interested while simultaneously keeping him engaged in Formula One.
Newey, of course, was the main factor behind Red Bull’s run of four world championships between 2010 and 2013, all achieved with an excellent Renault engine which, however, was never the most powerful on the grid.
The intensity and the relentless nature of development in Formula One has in the past taken its toll on Newey, who has threatened to leave Formula One on several occasions.
As recently as last year he was allowed to help a British America’s Cup squad perfect its next contender; his aerodynamics expertise apparently being readily translatable into the hydrodynamics that make a yacht go faster.
The hypercar project has given him something to occupy his creative mind between upgrade packages on the race cars and, judging by Dan Ricciardo’s efforts in the recent Australian Grand Prix, work on the new Aston Martin has not dimmed Newey’s ability to stay up with the best, if not ahead of them.
By Ian Porter and John Mellor on 21st March 2016 Comment AM-RB 001, Aston Martin, Hypercar, Red Bull
The hypercar project, carrying the prosaic name AM-RB 001, will not only give Aston Martin its next headline-busting meal ticket to develop much-needed future road cars for its dealers’ showrooms, it may have the potential to solve Red Bull Racing’s most pressing problem; from where does it get its next engine?
AM-RB 001
The former powerhouse team is now running in the F1 midfield because it missed out on a seat at the F1 engine table when the music stopped last year and now has the task of finding a competitive engine.
But there are those who are wondering if the powerplant that the partnership will clearly need to design to energise their mid-engine hypercar – intended to be “the fastest car on the planet” – could, in fact, be developed with Red Bull’s pressing engine requirements in mind.
There are those who think that the Aston Martin project could help secure a more competitive powertrain for Red Bull, post 2018, when the hypercar goes on sale.
Aston Martin makes some of the biggest, torquiest, most powerful V12 engines ever seen, but the little carmaker will not be making engines of this kind for Red Bull any time soon. V12s are illegal in F1 right now although a smaller, modular version of the V12 might work for them.
Despite its present parlous financial position, Aston Martin may be able to, by way of revenues generated by the AM-RB 001, provide the funding and scale for the design and manufacture of Red Bull’s future F1 engines. Red Bull could share in the development of the engine for the AM-RB 001 and, using its share of cash from the sale of the cars, also fund on-going F1 engine programs.
There is no suggestion that Aston Martin is in any position to support the Red Bull team as a sponsor. Aston’s annual revenues totalled just £468 million ($A891 million) in 2014 and the bottom line was a loss of £72 million thanks to some heavy research and development on new models.
But the new hypercar does raise the possibility of some strong revenues for both Aston Martin and Red Bull, depending on how the two companies have structured the hypercar partnership deal.
First, the numbers. Aston Martin is planning to make 100 of the AM-RB 001 model, but has not revealed the price yet.
Red Bull Racing team principal Christian Horner (left) and Aston Martin CEO Andy Palmer making the
announcement at the Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne of a new co-developed hypercar. But what of
the potential of a new power plant from the hypercar as the basis of an F1 engine for Red Bull?
The company’s first hypercar, last year’s track-only Vulcan, was priced at £1.8 million ($3.4 million) each for the projected production run of 24. This was comfortably above the price of the 2011 road-legal One-77 model, which cost £1.15 million for each of the 77 cars made/to be made.
Given this level of price escalation, plus the attraction of being designed by Adrian Newey, perhaps the greatest Formula One race car designer of all time, the price of the AM-RB 001 is likely to comfortably exceed £2 million ($A3.8 million) and could approach £2.6 million ($A5 million).
For comparative purposes, a Bugatti Veyron costs around €2.3 million ($A3.4 million).
If Aston Martin can sell 100 examples of the hypercar, it will generate revenues of around $500 million. That’s equivalent to a full year’s revenue from selling regular Aston Martin road cars.
While there are very many parts of such multi-million-dollar cars that are unique, it is fair to assume that the profit margin on these ego-boosters is still pretty lucrative. In fact, in this part of the market, higher prices tend to attract longer queues.
Assume the profit margin on the new hypercar was $2.5 million on each car, that provides the partners with $250 million to develop and build the cars and you would expect that would include engine development for a car designed to capture the imaginations of enthusiasts worldwide. It will need to be some engine.
And if the $250 million profit was split evenly between Aston Martin and Red Bull – that would give Red Bull a handy $125 million to continue refining an Aston Martin derived F1 powertrain, starting in the second half of 2018, in addition to the funds that Red Bull already spends each year on engine development for the team.
Red Bull already makes significant contributions to the Renault F1 engine program. The racing team is contracted to Renault to the end of 2016. Despite this, it has stepped up its spending in recent times.
In 2015 Red Bull hired Mario Illien, founder of the famous Ilmor race engine company, to help Renault with the development of its powertrain, specifically the internal combustion part of it.
This led to a lot of resentment at the French company’s engine development centre at Viry-Chatillon, just outside Paris, and to last year’s very public deterioration in relations between Renault and Red Bull.
The upshot was that the engine in this year’s Red Bull racers is branded TAG-Heuer and is based on the engine block of the Renault V6. Everything else is new.
Red Bull has also been investing in designing and manufacturing part of the energy recovery system that is an integral part of Formula One powertrains at present.
If the company can create a healthy revenue source in a dalliance with Aston Martin, it might be possible for the team to fund the development of a new and exclusive powertrain that could be made by Ilmor or another manufacturing contractor.
Red Bull might even be brave enough to recoup some of the investment by selling such engines to customer teams, confident in the knowledge that its chassis should always give the team an edge over those rivals.
By Ian Porter and John Mellor
Hypercar will keep Adrian Newey inside the Red Bull tent
Comment by Ian Porter
When you have a superstar designer on your hands the main task is to keep them challenged and engaged lest their attention wavers.
That’s why the plan for Aston Martin and Red Bull to build a hypercar makes sense because it addresses the perennial issue of finding things outside Formula One to keep the team’s chief technical officer, Adrian Newey, interested while simultaneously keeping him engaged in Formula One.
Newey, of course, was the main factor behind Red Bull’s run of four world championships between 2010 and 2013, all achieved with an excellent Renault engine which, however, was never the most powerful on the grid.
The intensity and the relentless nature of development in Formula One has in the past taken its toll on Newey, who has threatened to leave Formula One on several occasions.
As recently as last year he was allowed to help a British America’s Cup squad perfect its next contender; his aerodynamics expertise apparently being readily translatable into the hydrodynamics that make a yacht go faster.
The hypercar project has given him something to occupy his creative mind between upgrade packages on the race cars and, judging by Dan Ricciardo’s efforts in the recent Australian Grand Prix, work on the new Aston Martin has not dimmed Newey’s ability to stay up with the best, if not ahead of them.
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