Adrian Newey's fingerprints were visible in the RB3's lines, which drew comparisons to his earlier McLaren MP4/20 of 2005. The car arrived at a time of controversy involving both Red Bull Racing and sister team Toro Rosso. Williams and Spyker alleged that both cars were identical, having been designed by Red Bull Technology — a third-party subsidiary of the Red Bull parent company — effectively giving two teams the same chassis in breach of the Concorde Agreement. The FIA ruled the arrangement legal for the 2007 season, and team principal Christian Horner and Gerhard Berger confirmed they had obtained legal clearance for the setup before the season began.
The RB3 introduced a seamless-shift gearbox as one of its headline technical features. However, the innovation proved more troublesome than beneficial during the season, contributing to multiple race retirements for both drivers. Other reliability issues ranged from faulty brake pedals to jamming fuel flaps, painting a picture of a car with genuine pace but fragile mechanicals.
Mark Webber and David Coulthard drove the RB3 throughout the 2007 season. Webber was particularly strong in qualifying, starting inside the top eleven on eleven occasions, demonstrating the car's aerodynamic competitiveness over a single lap. However, converting that pace into race finishes proved difficult.
The car's defining result came at the 2007 European Grand Prix at the Nurburgring, where Webber capitalised on changeable conditions to claim a podium — the team's strongest showing of the year. He added points finishes in the United States and Belgian Grands Prix, taking seventh on both occasions. Coulthard had a marginally better haul, scoring points at four races and taking a fourth place at the Japanese Grand Prix. That Japanese round also produced one of the season's talking points: Webber had been running second before being struck from behind by Sebastian Vettel in the Toro Rosso under the safety car, an incident that cost him a likely podium while his team's sister entry eliminated his chances.
Midway through the season, Horner implemented a more rigorous reliability program, and the team recruited Geoff Willis — formerly of Williams and BAR/Honda — as a technical resource expected to benefit the 2008 car's development.
At the British Grand Prix, the RB3s carried a unique livery composed of fan-submitted images as part of a charity initiative for Wings for Life, an organisation focused on spinal cord injury research. Over 30,000 fans pledged money and uploaded photographs, each selecting a spot on the bodywork to have their image displayed. The campaign aimed to raise one million euros.
The RB3 served as proof of concept that Red Bull Racing could produce a genuinely fast car under Newey's direction, even if reliability prevented the team from converting its speed into results consistently. The collaboration between Newey, Willis, and the growing technical staff laid groundwork for the team's rapid ascent in subsequent seasons. The lessons absorbed from the seamless-shift gearbox troubles and mechanical fragility of 2007 were applied directly to the car that followed.