Disaster in the first autonomous car race!

The very first autonomous car race in Abu Dhabi revealed the limitations of AI that is not yet skilled at driving.

Autonomous cars will soon play a major role in our lives. On the track, it’s much less obvious! On April 27th, Yas Marina Circuit hosted the inaugural round of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL). A race featuring former Dallara chassis from Japanese Super Formula. It was supposed to be a revolution for motorsport, but it was limited to a festival of crazy cars.

Among collisions, spins, and cars stopped on the track, the spectacle proved to be quite awkward in the end, both for the very few spectators and for the developers whose strained expressions said a lot.

Although equipped with dozens of cameras and sensors of all kinds, the cars barely managed to overtake autonomously. After 7 laps, only one overtaking was recorded despite 8 cars participating. Former Russian F1 driver Daniil Kvyat was invited to set a reference lap to establish a baseline and assess the AI’s driving quality. In the end, there was more than 10 seconds difference, which isn’t ridiculous on a 2-minute lap, but the Russian didn’t seem to unlock the full potential of his car.

This is not the first time autonomous racing cars have taken to the track, but it is the first attempt to let multiple cars compete freely. As such, the A2RL will forever claim to have organized the first autonomous racing event, even if the spectacle can hardly be called a race.

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