The first race with single-seaters driven by Artificial Intelligence was held on the Formula 1 circuit in Abu Dhabi and the only positive note at the moment is that it was managed to be completed. Between strange accidents, system bugs and difficulties in staying on the track, cars without a human driver have proven to still have enormous limitations.
The first race with single-seaters driven by Artificial Intelligence was held in Abu Dhabi and the only positive note at the moment is that we managed to complete it. There debut race ofAbu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), on stage on the Yas Marina circuit where the Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix is held, in fact it was a semi-disaster.
Already starting from free practice it was understood that in order to carry out a truly exciting car race, we will have to wait for significant further developments in autonomous driving technology. The Dallara Super Formula single-seaters without a driver guided by Artificial Intelligence have in fact showed major limitations right from the start between cars that suddenly swerving or spinning or crashing into barriers for no apparent reason. And there were even some ‘virtual pilots’ who in the middle of the tests he decided to leave the track and park himself in one of the escape routes just to take a little break.
During qualifying the situation did not improve much with the cars driven by Artificial Intelligence which, for the same reasons mentioned above, they had great difficulty completing a timed lap with one of the single-seaters even hitting another when braking late on a corner. But it is during the race the worst scenes were seen which highlight the enormous limitations that this technology still has.
The winners of the Champions League in the next 80 years according to artificial intelligence: there is Torino
What happened during the fourth of the eight laps of the race is exemplary the single-seater of the Polimove team (from the Polytechnic University of Milan) which was leading suddenly turned, spinning and remaining stuck in the middle of the track. The Tum car, which was in second place at the time, overtook it safely (going on to win the race), but shortly after the commissioners pulled out the yellow flags, putting the artificial intelligences driving the cars behind in great difficulty.
In fact, by literally applying the rules, the two cars that were in third and fourth position, having reached the point on the track where the Polimove team car was stopped, they suddenly stopped, taking what the regulation says literally, that is, that you cannot overtake another car under yellow flags. And for the artificial intelligence it doesn’t matter if it’s a single-seater stopped on the track in an accident or in the process of retiring.
And even after the race resumed, there was no shortage of surprises one of the cars suddenly stopped in the middle of a bend with one lap to go. And if you think that at least in terms of speed the self-driving single-seaters have put on a show, even in this case you will be disappointed given that It took the cars driven by artificial intelligence about an hour to complete the race of just eight laps of the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi (Formula 1 cars take around 11 minutes to complete eight laps of the race track).
7 years after the first similar experiment with cars without a human driver, the Roborace of 2017, therefore, despite the considerable progress made on the topic of AI, the first race of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League 2024 demonstrates that we are still at the stage where it is considered a triumph if you manage to complete a mini-race. In fact, today it seems that in order for artificial intelligence to reach the level of human pilots there is still a lot of development work to be done.
