Goodwood Festival of Speed 2024: 5 technologically significant cars on show – including Red Bull RB17

This year, Red Bull celebrated its 20th anniversary as a Formula 1 team with Max Verstappen driving his 2021 F1 championship-winning RB16B and his current team-mate Sergio Perez driving the 2022 RB18. What drew the most headlines though, was the unveiling of Red Bull’s new hypercar - the Adrian Newey-designed RB17.

Including the RB17, here are five cars from the 2024 Goodwood Festival of Speed that showed off groundbreaking motorsport technology - including an autonomous single-seater and a McLaren fitted with parts from a gaming set-up.

 

The Indy Autonomous Challenge (IAC) AV-24, dubbed the “world’s fastest autonomous racecar”, took on the Goodwood hillclimb from Thursday to Sunday, with shakedowns over the days leading up to the event. As the name suggests, this is a driverless car. 

 

The IAC, which was created in 2021, boasts numerous records including the autonomous land speed record (192.2mph), the fastest autonomous head-to-head overtake on track (177mph), and the most miles of cumulative autonomous racing (9,000 miles).

 

Students from Politecnico di Milano, Michigan State University, and the University of Alabama combined to run the AV-24 car, which is based on a Dallara chassis used in the Indy NXT series, at Goodwood. 

 

The ‘driver’ of the car uses four GPS antennae, six cameras, two radar systems and four lidar systems to sense its surroundings while the team codes the software to ensure the car can safely navigate the track.

 

This year marked the car’s debut on the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb, although the IAC attended last year’s event for a demonstration. 

 

While the Indy Autonomous Challenge aims to progress STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) education by partnering with universities, one of its major goals is to hone autonomous driving software and bring that technology to roadcars in the future.

 

The Red Bull RB17 was unveiled to spectacular fanfare on Friday at the Festival of Speed, with crowds clamouring to take a photograph of the car that fills in the gap between the Red Bull RB16B and the RB18 Formula 1 cars.

 

The RB17 is, however, a hypercar. And one that could be famed F1 designer Newey’s final contribution to the six-time F1 constructors’ championship-winning team as he prepares to leave the squad.

 

Boasting more than 1,200 horsepower thanks to a V10 engine that redlines at 15,000rpm twinned with an electric motor, the RB17 weighs under 900 kilogramme with technology that rivals F1 cars. The powertrain is mated to a six-speed carbon-fibre gearbox that puts the power through the rear wheels.

 

The bodywork produces 1.7 tonnes of downforce through active aerodynamics, airflow, ground effect and wake management, while carbon brakes provide the stopping power.

 

The car is estimated to cost £5.8million - and only 50 examples will be produced by Red Bull Advanced Technologies.

 

For some, that price might prove to be a bargain given Newey says that it can provide the “thrill of driving at F1 speeds” for a driver and passenger.

 

Following the trend of bringing motorsport technology to the road, the Ferrari 499P Modificata is based on the Ferrari 499 hypercar that won the 2023 24 Hours of Le Mans.

 

Much like the Le Mans-winning 499, the 499P is powered by a twin-turbo V6 engine - but this engine is unconstrained by the World Endurance Championship regulations. It therefore produces a maximum of 640kW (858 horsepower). Coupled with an electric motor - that was developed using Ferrari’s F1 experience - the powertrain includes an Energy Recovery System (ERS) that harvests and deploys braking energy. That power is sent to all four wheels.

 

Unfortunately, the 499P Modificata is not road legal, meaning those who want to drive it will have to sign up to Ferrari’s exclusive Corse Clienti programme, which supplies them a team of dedicated staff who travel with the car to circuits such as Italy’s Mugello and Germany’s Nurburgring - where the 499P can be unleashed alongside Ferrari’s stable of historic F1 cars.

 

The first European-built Toyota GR Yaris H2 - a hydrogen-powered variant of Toyota’s diminutive but powerful hot hatch - made its debut at the Goodwood Festival of Speed to demonstrate Toyota’s commitment to alternative fuels.

 

This car doesn’t carry a fuel cell; rather, it retains the turbocharged 1.6-litre three-cylinder engine of the GR Yaris that has been modified to be fuelled by hydrogen, which is directly injected into the engine instead of petrol.

 

A hydrogen-powered Yaris has featured at the Festival of Speed before, but this one was produced in Europe and further honed in terms of handling and performance.

 

“I just so appreciate Toyota’s courage in pursuing the hydrogen idea. It improves all the time and that’s all you can hope for with the development as you get closer to your ideal,” said comedian and motorsport enthusiast Rowan Atkinson, who put the GR Yaris H2 through its paces at Goodwood.

 

Atkinson had eight-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Ogier in the passenger seat up the hill, and described the Frenchman as “tolerant” of his abilities throughout. 

 

Toyota will continue its efforts to push hydrogen power as it aims to enter the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans with a hydrogen prototype car.

 

The McLaren P1, one of the first hypercars to be powered by hybrid technology, has been around for well over a decade. What makes this version, which debuted at Goodwood, different, is that doesn’t include a hybrid powertrain.

 

Instead, drifter Mike Whiddett swapped a triple-rotor turbocharged rotary engine into what was once McLaren’s flagship model, causing a lot of noise and tyre smoke in the process. The rotary engine produces 1,000 horsepower from two-litres of displacement - and it stood out in a sea of more refined and efficient offerings. 

 

In order to reveal it at the Festival of Speed, Whiddett and his team built the special P1 in 100 days. The New Zealander chose to get rid of the car’s paddle shifters and replace it with a more conventional gearshift for the purposes of drifting. The shifter in this car however has a unique provenance. 

 

“The shifter is off my son’s [gaming] simulator,” said Whiddett. “With drifting, you let go of the gearshift and it’s spinning, and then you grab it again, so you don't know what's an upshift or a downshift, so we needed a sequential six-speed,” he reasoned.

 

As for the rotary engine, Whiddett has always been a proponent of the engine that he admitted was “loud, fast, but no one really liked them”.

 

This type of engine had its heyday in the late 1980s and early 1990s - most famously within the 1991 Le Mans 24 Hours-winning Mazda 787B - but the P1’s screaming soundtrack showed that the rotary engine still has its place in motorsport.