Currently reading: Adrian Newey could follow up Valkyrie with new bespoke road car
Despite the Aston Martin and Red Bull split, the Valkyrie might not be the last Newey-designed road car

Autocar had the chance to experience the Aston Martin Valkyrie at the Goodwood Festival of Speed from the passenger seat. Red Bull Racing’s Adrian Newey – the man behind the original idea and much of the execution – got to drive it on the Sunday. We spoke to him about the experience shortly afterwards.

“It’s still slightly raw; there’s some development still to be done," he said. "The car at Goodwood didn’t have active suspension and there’s lots of mapping work still to be done. But I think when everything comes together, it will be really special.”

Newey had previously driven the 1160bhp hypercar at Silverstone, but this was the first time that he experienced it in a public arena. Although it's one where, by his own admission, “you would have to be really brave to push.” What surprised him about it in nearly finished form?

“The cabin noise is higher than we wanted, I have to be honest,” he admitted. Given the 11,400rpm-capable Cosworth V12 is mounted directly to the rear bulkhead, sound insulation was always going to be an issue.

“I don’t think we’re unique in this. There will be at least one other high-performance hypercar coming out with the requirement to either wear headphones or earpieces, whichever is your preference.”

That sounds like a reference to the Gordon Murray Automotive T50 and its even-revvier Cosworth V12.

“Luggage space is also smaller than I had hoped," continued Newey, "which is down to our inexperience of realising just how much paraphernalia is associated with modern road cars when it comes to emissions standards. The weight crept up a bit, too, but not too much.”

Overall, though, Newey is proud of the car, and especially its usability, citing both its ability to manoeuvre under pure-electric power and the good manners of its motorsport-style dog-cut gearbox, which uses the hybrid system’s electric motor to help damp unwanted frequencies.

“It’s a car that’s perhaps more targeted and focused than other cars have been,” Newey said. "We didn’t do any benchmarking against potential competitor cars, because we wanted to try to establish a new genre of car that was more track-biased than other road cars have been, while still making it usable on the road.

"The analogy I always had in my mind was a modern superbike: incredible performance, you can take it to the shops, but you really need to have your wits about you or it will bite you. When you really enjoy it is when you take it on track."

Newey’s decision to drive his stint while wearing full Red Bull Racing overalls also highlighted the impending divorce between the car’s creators. Now that Aston Martin has its own Formula 1 team, the alliance with Red Bull Advanced Technology is set to end. 

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Aston has already confirmed that it will now be developing the Valhalla, previously known as the AM-RB 003, by itself.

However, this is news that hasn’t in any way diminished Newey’s previously stated aim to create more road cars.

“Red Bull Advanced Technology was set up for exactly this project, but it has grown and matured, and we’ve got quite a lot of commercial projects on the books now,” he said.

“That makes it easier to take on a road car or a track-biased car that can be put on the road in a tighter timescale, because of the extra experience we’ve gathered. 

"So yes, absolutely, we would like to do another vehicle. Exactly what that is and what it’s targeted at is subject to debate. Watch this space is probably the easiest way to put it.”

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Mike Duff

Mike Duff
Title: Contributing editor

Mike has been writing about cars for more than 25 years, having defected from radio journalism to follow his passion. He has been a contributor to Autocar since 2004, and is a former editor of the Autocar website. 

Mike joined Autocar full-time in 2007, first as features editor before taking the reins at autocar.co.uk. Being in charge of the video strategy at the time saw him create our long running “will it drift?” series. For which he apologies.

He specialises in adventurous drive stories, many in unlikely places. He once drove to Serbia to visit the Zastava factory, took a £1500 Mercedes W124 E-Class to Berlin to meet some of its taxi siblings and did Scotland’s North Coast 500 in a Porsche Boxster during a winter storm. He also seems to be a hypercar magnet, having driven such exotics as the Koenigsegg One:1, Lamborghini SCV12, Lotus Evija and Pagani Huayra R.

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jmd67 21 July 2021

As amazing as it looks and sounds, it's really little more than a racing car with number plates on it. It looks absolutely brutal as a usable road car proposition. Is it really that much different from one of the old 962's that have been made road legal? Way faster, yes, but just about as unusable on the road...

It also looked extremely nervous even when driven at about 60% at Goodwood. Every time power was applied the back end squirmed, okay when you're a race driver, maybe not so much when you're a hedge fund manager who will almost immediately land it in the hedges...

You'll need every ounce of skill you have yet your right arm is pressed right up against your passenger. On the Top Gear video, both occupants are only 5'8" and they're pressed together pretty tightly. 

I don't doubt that this will be incredibly quick but I'm a wee bit unsure that it will be what some people thought they were signing up for.

scrap 21 July 2021

Surely the T50 won't be as loud as this? Very different brief to the Valkyrie... most of which probably won't ever get driven.

Symanski 21 July 2021

Is it skittish?

 

I think Newey has just admitted that the Valkyrie is no McLaren F1.   That one pretty much nailed all of its objectives.   It is a useable road car.

 

Valkyrie is a track car.   Or one that can only be used on the cleanest and smoothest of roads.   If you've seen how much debris the Valkyrie throws up you'll understand!

 

Great business for Autoglass fixing any car's windscreen that dares get too close to the back of a Valkyrie...