A2RL sees autonomous racers take tentative first steps

Eight teams competed in the first ever event, racing converted Dallara Super Formula SF23 cars with their cockpits filled with serious computing power connected to an arsenal of sensors and infused with a racing AI.

These machines can drive their own races and make their own decisions regarding track position, throttle and brake usage, steering input and competitive conduct. To be clear, there is no driver trackside, either. It’s fully AI/software-driven.

So the competition isn’t between drivers, but between the teams and their ability to program these cars. Because getting the cars to do all this stuff on their own and tailoring tactics to specific conditions requires reams of intricate and involved coding. The winning team, TUM of Germany, took the victory after a last-lap battle ended with a malfunction.

“We are absolutely thrilled with the outcome; it speaks volumes about our collective engineering prowess, coding expertise, and sheer determination,” said Simon Hoffmann, Team Principal. “It's a testament to the incredible power of AI driving the evolution of autonomous mobility into the future!"

No one of the 600,000 global viewers who watched the race could with a straight face say that the cars are anywhere near what a human driver can be capable of. Daniil Kvyat showed as much during the AI versus human race, which saw the ex-F1 driver beat his autonomous rival by some 10.38 seconds over the 45-minute race. In the all-autonomous race, there were plenty of lock-ups, spins and moments where the cars got ‘confused’. But really, this is just the beginning for this technology. As tentative and exploratory steps in the journey of this new technology, in the grand scheme of things, it was mighty impressive.

This endeavour will no doubt prove to be invaluable in the development of autonomous systems and AI. It’s just the latest example of a decades-long relationship between racing and the road, where competition expedites the development of bleeding-edge technologies that mean the cars in the dealerships of tomorrow will be that much more advanced.