Autonomous Motor Racing – What Do The Humans Think?

So, turns out it wasn't a joke. If the all-electric FIA Formula E championship was touted as futuristic, then Roborace – a new series for fully driverless vehicles that will join the support bill in 2016 – is in a different stratosphere.

"We like to create controversy and we like to put things out there that are revolutionary," Formula E CEO Alejandro Agag told Motorsport.com. "This is clearly revolutionary; some people don't like revolutions but they usually stay behind."

Whichever way you look at it, a racing series without drivers will take some getting used to. Formula E's championship leader Lucas di Grassi came out in support of the concept on Twitter, whilst admitting that there was "no need to say traditional fans will go MAD [with criticism]".

Details of the series, which has drawn predictable comparisons with Scalextric, are somewhat sketchy, but we know that races will be an hour long and held on the same circuits visited by Formula E. But will people engage with Roborace without the allure of big-name driving talent, and should it be viewed more as a technical challenge than a sporting spectacle?

In the pursuit of balance, we asked sportscar racers David Henemeier-Hansson and Neel Jani, and former racer turn commentator Tom Gaymor, to give their perspectives.

"I love the concept in the spirit of diversity. Seeing robots race against each other sounds like a ton of fun to me – we could try a lot of things that we wouldn't be a good idea with humans behind the wheel and learn a bunch from doing it. Whenever we have a dangerous accident in motorsport people say we learned a lot from it, but the problem is it took someone getting hurt for us to learn those things. But if you crash a robot what's the worst that can happen? The software still lives on, you just install it in another piece of carbon fibre and electronics and go again. As long as you've sealed things up properly to make sure it's not a hazard to spectators, I say bring it on!

"On top of that, Roborace goes to the heart of what motorsports has been purporting to do for a century, which is to push forward the boundaries of innovation. Headlights, windscreen wipers, disc brakes and all sorts of advances for the automotive industry happened in racing, and the next frontier for our generation is self-driving cars. It seems completely obvious to me that we're not all going to be driving our own cars in 20 years' time; that is a preposterous notion to me. It will be kind of like owning a horse today – you do it because you enjoy it and because it's fun, not because it's a great mode of transport.

"As anyone who has played Forza or Gran Turismo knows, driving against AI opponents is hilarious because they suck a lot of the time – they drive into each other, cut bad lines and do all sorts of things that are fun to watch. Robots can absolutely have personality, precisely because they are programmed by humans to have a very safe driving or a more reckless, entertaining style.

"And, if you're threatened by other forms of racing, maybe you should focus a little bit more on making your own show interesting."

"My first reaction is it's more of a show. If people like watching races, then robots programmed so they challenge each other could be interesting, but it's too early to say yet because the human factor gets lost and that's what makes racing interesting. I want to see human performances, individuals that can do one thing better than someone else – one can drive better at night, the other in the day, one can do both, one who is good in the rain, and another not so much. If you look back at the history of endurance racing, you think of the great drivers like Tom Kristensen, Jacky Ickx and so on – you don't think so much about the cars.

"I think it will be interesting to see if people want to watch it. They will have to take a lot more risks, so it will be interesting what they do with crashes and how the speed is controlled. We will have to see. You should never say never to new ideas, and I do think in the future we will see cars driving by themselves on the road. Maybe we are still a different generation; we will always like any V10 or V12 engine over an electrical engine, but that doesn't mean that we can close our eyes to what is coming in the future because new generations have new interests.

"But it's still not sport – it's something else – because from my point of view, sport involves a human being who has to exert a physical effort. It's not in the genre of motorsport, so the first thing is to find a new name for it!"

"My step-father was a professional sportsman and so was my grandfather, so I absolutely love human competition. I like to see how individuals deal with pressure and how competition evolves through that emotion – with driverless cars obviously you don't get that at all.

"My concern is the sustainability of the concept. At the moment it is a technical challenge to create and develop the technology. But once you've got through that initial stage and the AI is perfected to run on the edge of adhesion so it won't lock up, miss an apex or make a judgment based on an emotive reaction – which from a technological point of view is very important, because you wouldn't roll the technology out on the road if suddenly the car is going to do something unexpected – where is the scope for one of the cars behind to make the decision to come off the racing line to try and pass? From my point of view it's a question of whether it will be a follow-the-leader demonstration.

"But as someone involved in the sport, it holds a huge amount of intrigue, so of course I'd watch it. Our sport is effectively governed by technology, because you can't win a Formula One race if you don't have the right equipment. Historically speaking, motorsport has been a vehicle for pushing the boundaries of technology because manufacturers can offset their R&D budgets against sponsorship, and this is a concept that will push that process further.

"Whilst it's not an idea that particularly floats my boat, I will take an open mind to the product because I haven't seen it yet. I understand that there are people who really buy into this and it does have a place. At the end of the day if you don't dare to try these things, then the world would be a boring place. This idea wasn't built to please everyone, you simply can't do that."

At least doing interviews on the grid will be relatively straightforward Tom…

@james_newbold