Red Bull Racing Aerodynamicist and downforce extraordinaire Adrian Newey is famous for creating championship Formula One cars, but his resume may be broadening in the near future.
Top Gear is reporting that Newey may be working on a supercar for Infiniti, the manufacturer behind the Red Bull Team.
“Adrian is itching to do something new,” said Andy Palmer, Nissan’s British Executive Vice President. “We are actively exploring the technology cross-over with Red Bull, although these things can take a long time in the incubator.”
When asked if an Infiniti supercar was in Newey’s plans, Palmer simply smiled and said, “Watch this space.”
After designing championship cars for Williams F1 and McLaren, Newey moved to Infiniti’s Red Bull Racing team in 2006. Under Infiniti’s banner, Newey designed several F1 medalists, including the carbon fiber and honeycomb composite RB6. According to Newey, the 18,000-rpm V8 screamer “was probably the car with the most downforce in the history of F1, more even than the legendary spoiler cars of the 1980s. We measured up to 5.5G of lateral acceleration.”
Looks like Red Bull gives you wings after all, they just serve a slightly different purpose.
Newey was also the brainchild behind radical concepts like the 1,483-horsepower, 249-mph, regulation-shattering X2010 prototype for Gran Turismo 6. The “fan car” layout of the X2010 (codenamed X1) was actually designed to suck air out from underneath the vehicle, creating a low-pressure zone and allowing for higher cornering speeds.
Newey’s creations garnered the Formula One Drivers’ and Constructors’ Championships from 2010 to 2013, consecutively.
As for Infiniti’s supercar, it’s too early to tell what it might be like, but if Newey’s F1 cars are any indication, expect downforce. Lots of it.
Could it be GT-R powered, or take notes from the 2020 Vision Gran Turismo concept? Hard to say, but it’s difficult to imagine it being anything but spectacular.
(Photos via Infiniti Red Bull Racing)
