[JOHN] Cars like the Aston Martin Valkyrie only come along once in a generation.
The fruits of a partnership between a famous British sports car maker and its F1 partner,
Red Bull.
The radical Aston hypercar is the brainchild of none other than legendary Formula 1 aerodynamicist,
Adrian Newey.
Now, Newey isn't one to compromise, so when he wanted a naturally aspirated V12 to power
the Aston hypercar, he wasn't prepared to settle for an off the shelf item.
Instead he called his old friends at former Formula 1 engine builder, Cosworth.
Because only Cosworth could deliver what he wanted, a V12 that weighed just 200 kilograms,
revved to the high heavens, produced a cool 1000 horsepower, and lasted for more than
100 000 kilometres.
And that’s why we journeyed to the British engine builder’s HQ, to get up close and
personal with the man who delivered what most thought was impossible.
So this is Bruce Woods, he is the managing director of Cosworth, and this guy has been
involved in everything from Formula 1 to Fast Fords, but I believe this has been a particular
challenge for you.
[BRUCE] Yes, absolutely.
It's an incredible thing to have the opportunity to work on, and this is definitely going to
be one for everybody involved to tell their grandkids about, so this is something very
special for Cosworth.
[JOHN] I think first, actually, Bruce has to tell us about where we’re standing now
because I've been to some industry test beds in my time, but this room is absolutely insane.
[BRUCE] This is one of ten dyno cells that we have at Cosworth.
Three in a row here, and amazing capability, so these were designed for Formula 1.
You wouldn’t find cells like this in any other facility other than Formula 1.
[JOHN] Tell me if this is true or not, but normal dynos are pretty boring places, aren’t
they, you just spin up a wheel, it produces horsepower.
This thing can replicate the forces of a full record setting lap at the Nurburgring.
How cool is that?
[BRUCE] It is an amazing bit if kit, so 1000 kilowatts, 100% overload, so you can run 2
megawatts, 24000 RPM, and when we're running through a Nurburgring cycle, then with the
transient capability, we can replicate all of the gear shifts, so it's a real spectacle
to see the engine.
The maximum power is made at 10500 RPM, and we're not rev limited till 11.1, so each gear
shift is happening between 10.5 and 11.1.
It is an incredible thing, both to see and to hear as the engine goes round the lap of
Nurburgring.
[JOHN]] They talk about a power race and super cars, but this is next level.
[BRUCE] Yes, so one of the key targets at the beginning was absolute power.
Kilowatt numbers, the engine itself is delivering about 746 kilowatts, and then on top of that
there's the hybrid electrification motor.
746 isn’t such a nice round number, but in horsepower, that’s 1000 horsepower, which
is obviously a great number to conjure with.
[JOHN] I guess the horsepower was only the beginning of the challenge that you face because
you work with a certain man called Adrian Newey, who is a pretty tough cookie in the
world of Formula 1.
He's the guy responsible for a much of Red Bull’s success.
He's an incredible designer, but he's quite the taskmaster.
Tell us some of the specifics he wanted from this engine.
[BRUCE] We started out with power, so we actually started out with 950 horsepower, it became
1000.
We have to meet Euro 6 emissions.
We again were very keen to rev beyond 10 000 RPM.
[JOHN] In a road car, 10 000 RPM?
It just beggars belief.
[BRUCE] It is crossing a threshold that hasn’t been done before.
There's engines that rev to 9, there's nothing in a road car that goes to 10, so we wanted
to cross that threshold.
And then critically all of this had to be packaged in something of 200 kilograms weight
target and to be the structural element of the entire car.
[JOHN] And that’s crucial, isn't it, because that helps Adrian Newey achieve some of his
engineering goals?
[BRUCE] To achieve the vehicle weight target it was critical that every piece of material
in the car is doing more than one job.
In the case of the engine not only is it producing the power, it's holding the back and the front
wheels together.
[JOHN] What was it like to work with Newey?
Does he change the goalposts?
Does he put pressure?
Does one week say I want the engine to be 200 and then maybe next week he says 193?
[BRUCE] No, working with Adrian was fantastic.
He is certainly very single minded and very demanding, but what he wants to drive you
to is the best you can do.
When we were set the target of 200 kilograms we did not know quite how we were going to
deliver that.
We tried to talk Adrian into more like 220, he wasn't having any of that.
In fact, we've delivered about 205, 206, and he’s happy with that because he can see
that we have put every piece of engineering, simulation analysis and technology into making
the weight as low as we can get it, and 205, 206, is about it.