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The RB17 is alive, it sounds like 2001 Spa, and its creator drove it up the hill — the most poetic debut in years.

1,200hp, sub-900kg, Cosworth NA V10 to 15,000rpm, 50 cars at £5M each — and Newey himself behind the wheel for its first-ever public run at Goodwood on July 9. Reddit r/cars and r/formula1 both erupted: top comments called it 'the best thing to happen at Goodwood since the McMurtry' — the exhaust note tuned to echo the MP4/15 was not lost on anyone.

The Red Bull RB17 has been more than five years in development at Red Bull Advanced Technologies, and its Goodwood debut on July 9 was the first time it moved in public. The heart of the car is a bespoke Cosworth-built 4.5-litre naturally aspirated V10 producing around 1,000hp independently, screaming to 15,000rpm — add a 200hp ERS unit and the combined output exceeds 1,200hp in a car weighing under 900kg. Top speed is rated beyond 350kph. Newey designed the car from his first sketches at Christmas 2020, before departing Red Bull in 2024. He returned specifically to drive it up the Goodwood hill, which, given the backdrop of the Horner/Newey fallout, had a certain operatic quality to it. Only 50 examples will be built, each priced at around £5 million, and every one is already spoken for. At Goodwood the car ran in pre-production trim — active suspension, fan-generated downforce, and various active systems not yet calibrated — making the fact that it worked first time out of the box all the more remarkable. Full performance testing will follow in dedicated track environments later in 2026. For the Alpine regulars: this is the closest a road-legal (track-only, technically) car has come to replicating the acoustic drama of the V10 F1 era since the Pagani Zonda.

Romain Dumas took his fifth shootout win in an electric Ford, making the top two fully electric — a first in FoS history.

The 33rd FoS (July 9–12) ran under the theme of motorsport's great rivalries; Dumas won the Timed Shoot-Out for the third consecutive year — fifth overall — in the electric Ford Super Mustang Mach-E, with another EV in second. The gap back to third was more than 3.5 seconds. PistonHeads forum consensus: 'impressive numbers, sad optics' — with the top Goodwood FoS thread noting that the hill has effectively become electric territory at the very sharp end, while the real spectacle remained firmly petrol-powered further down the timesheet.

The 2026 Goodwood Festival of Speed ran from July 9 to 12 at the Duke of Richmond's West Sussex estate, themed around motorsport's great rivalries — including the Ford vs Ferrari and Hunt vs Lauda 50th-anniversary narratives. The headline result in the Timed Shoot-Out was Romain Dumas extending his own record to five wins, this time in the electric Ford Super Mustang Mach-E, with a second EV completing the top two — the first time in Festival history that both top positions were taken by fully electric machinery. Third place, a Shadow, was more than 3.5 seconds behind, a gap that underlines how much electric machinery has colonised the very top of the hill. Away from the Shootout, the weekend's petrochemical highlights were considerable: Ducati's centenary balcony moment on Thursday; Red Bull's RB17 V10 demonstration; Singer headlining the Central Feature; and Damon Hill closing Sunday celebrating 30 years since his 1996 F1 title. Adrian Newey also drove the RB17 he designed — now as an Aston Martin employee — in what was, diplomatically speaking, an interesting arrangement. For Alpine-region readers planning Goodwood 2027: book early. The Sunday Shootout result will irritate for a full twelve months.