Why watch robotics cars race more than once when eventually you will know the outcome for every track,
...................when you can watch a video "movie" of a race instead....at whatever time you want to?

Aren't we already having computers make movies for us?

Why race a human against a robotics car to teach the robotics car to eventually humiliate the human with feeling inadequate?

Does anyone find humiliating fellow humans to be entertaining?

And eventually get the human fired from driving a race car?

Don't we already know the "news" will mention EVERY TIME how badly humans did compared to robotics if you ever had a "humans only" race?

And who will be buying tickets more than once to attend races where there are only robotics cars?

and what will happen to the racing economy and the whole business around car racing when no one buys tickets to watch robotics more than once?

Are the racing organizations committing business suicide when no one buys tickets to pay their salaries?

Can robotics cars be "adjusted" to lose or win and how will that affect the gamblers on races?

Breaking new ground: The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League.

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emailBy George Tamayo | April 23, 2024 12:38 PM ET

On April 27, the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League, or A2RL, will attempt what has never been done before: put four autonomously driven racecars on track to compete together for the first time. Cue the cries of the robots taking over.

Well, maybe not.

“The gladiatorial element of humans competing on a field of play is not something we ever intend to replace, and never should be,” says Dr. Thomas McCarthy, Executive Director of Aspire, who have created this $2.25 million Grand Challenge that has brought the best and the brightest in coding, robotics and race engineering together to push the performance boundaries of autonomy in the context of driving to the furthest point currently imaginable.

The race will take place at the Yas Marina Circuit using identical Dallara SF23 cars currently used in the Super Formula Series in Japan. Competing are eight teams from around the world, including Code 19 Racing from the United States.

The cars themselves will be looked after by a team of independent mechanics and technicians in terms of car preparation, set-up and maintenance. At present the teams are only competing on the basis of which one can develop the most effective code derived from what the AI learns from a multitude of sensors and cameras on the car. Indeed, the only connection the teams have with the car is when it returns from the track and they can gather and process the data accrued. Once the car leaves the pit box again, it does so completely autonomously without any human interaction except for a kill switch as a safety measure.

Teams have already been testing since early March of this year at the Yas Marina Circuit. Come race week, teams will first compete in single-car style qualifying. Successful teams will then square-off in a one-on-one “attacker-defender” style race with the four most successful teams finally competing wheel-to-wheel in a multi-lap final.

Adding to the drama will be an ‘AI versus Human’ race that will see ex-F1 driver Daniil Kvyat go head-to-head with an autonomous car. In that race, Kvyat will get a head start and the challenge will be to see if the autonomous car can close the gap.

So, if the goal here isn’t to eliminate human drivers, what is it?

“There has been a lot of conversation about a future centered around ‘driverless cars,’ but we believe that such a thing would be massive mistake,” argues McCarthy. “There has been a long history of technology created that has either not been accepted by people within the market, or it has been used in ways other than how it was intended. Consumer acceptance of technology is critical.



“Moreover, the automotive industry has always been focused on what we would call ‘secondary safety,’ meaning what happens in the event of and immediately in the aftermath of a crash,” McCarthy continues. “We are trying to promote technology that focuses on ‘primary safety’ to prevent the crash from happening at all. But for that to happen, drivers need to not just accept AI as a co-pilot but demand it. So, to develop that technology and prove its capability to the point that people will accept it, we created this race series.”

Code 19 Racing, the first professional team, is led by Lawrence Walter. He has assembled a diverse team of male and female engineers from a variety of backgrounds with experience in motorsports, automotive, robotics and coding. Along with the pro team running the A2RL car, there’s a junior team of STEM students brought together by the Boys & Girls Club of Southeastern Michigan fielding a scaled down racecar with similar autonomous capabilities.

“What a racecar driver does is among the great feats of human athletic ability,” says Walter. “We are using this as a platform for our start-up to recruit and develop talented minds in this field by giving them a monumental challenge of racing a car completely through the AI code they write and develop.”

While aviation has utilized advanced auto-pilot systems for decades, Walter points out the challenge here is much higher.

“Planes have a lot of airspace to work with and large runways to land on. Being off by a few feet isn’t likely to negatively affect them. But in a racecar going for the best performance, being off by a few centimeters could put the car in the wall, and that would be a bad day,” he says. “The individuals on these teams are all highly competitive and they are pushing the limits to develop the incredibly complex coding needed to get the maximum performance out of the racecar.”

Walter adds that racecar drivers succeed by sensing what the car is doing and analyzing the conditions and then filtering that through their experience developed over many seasons of racing to determine what their inputs are. A2RL coders are having to take the data from an array of sensors along with what the AI program has gathered and learned to develop new or additional code to refine the autonomous process. Just as race engineers help a human driver, they are striving to help the AI improve its performance.

A big part of that is developing the code that allows the AI to learn and understand what effects things like tire degradation and fuel load have on performance to make the correct driving adaptations.

 

Will robotics race cars eventually stop BS mistreatment of humans like is being done to humans right now by the jerk officials who think they are untouchable?
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Andretti ‘offended’ by F1 rejection comments, set for Miami meeting

Is it up to F1 management to determine who will or will not be embarassed on the race track?

Is Formula 1 saying that the last place guy RIGHT NOW is being embarrased?

Are they saying that Andretti "needs protection" of some sort?

What kind of "protection" is Formula 1 Management giving their race teams right now?

Why won't Formula 1 even meet and talk?

Is Formula 1 management looking to get a bribe first?

Is Formula 1 afraid that Andretti will start winning right away and someone won't like that?

Why is Formula 1 still waiting even after Andretti has put up money and built a new facility?

Who are those F1 jerks pretending to be God?

Mario, maybe you should tell them adios, and let's see how well they do without you.

You can be darn sure that F1 won't be in Miami in another 3 years.

People get fed up with bull manure from pisant dictators who don't know anything about racing.

Geoffrey M Miller/Motorsport Images
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emailBy Chris Medland | April 22, 2024 8:22 AM ET

Mario Andretti says he was “offended” by comments from Formula 1 about how Andretti Global would not be competitive if it was granted an entry, as well as disrespect over the General Motors partnership.

Formula One Management (FOM) stated it was not open to giving Andretti a spot on the grid in either 2025 or 2026 at the start of this year, AFTER the FIA had approved the team’s credentials to join the sport. Earlier this month, Andretti opened its Silverstone facility that is building a chassis to current regulations as work continues on the F1 project, and the 1979 world champion says comments that the team wouldn’t be competitive and is underestimating the challenge of racing in F1 were unfair. Who are those bastards anyway?

“I was offended, actually,” Andretti told AP at the IndyCar race in Long Beach this weekend. “I don’t think we deserved that, to be honest with you.

“It’s a big investment in the series, and you’d think they’d welcome that. Even the value of the series is more valuable with 11 teams than 10, so I don’t know. Tell us what is really wrong.”

With F1 stating it would "look more favorably" (What the heck does "more favorably" mean? on the entry in 2028 if GM commits to its power unit project, following its registration as a supplier with the FIA, there have also been comments relating to the appeal of GM partnering with existing teams that have also annoyed Andretti. Does that mean that F1 is looking to back out and give hillary clinton's BS excuse of "we didn't say that"?

“That’s another offensive statement there. We’re the ones that worked it out, and GM said it over and over, ‘Andretti or nothing,’ and then (F1) still tried to take it. There’s an undercurrent there that I don’t understand, quite honestly, but if they want blood, well, I’m ready.” Are we dealing with the Godfather here?

However, Andretti says he’s likely to get answers to those frustrations when the prospective team meets with F1 at the next round in Miami.

“We only had one meeting with them. That’s a problem. We haven’t had enough. I think that’s why I really welcome our next meeting. You know, let’s sit down. There were some opportunities missed along the way, but we’ve got to look forward, not back.

“I’m remaining hopeful because we never stop working towards this. It was made clear that our work is at pace, and as you can see we’re not just talking. We’re putting brick and mortar together. We’ve shown that with the team that already has a place in Silverstone.

“We’re trying to say ‘We’ll do whatever you ask of us. We’ll do whatever is there. Now, if you think of something, you tell us,’.

But they haven’t told us yet except for some excuses like, ‘Oh we don’t want you coming on, we don’t want you to be embarrassed.’

Who the heck is "WE"?

It's sounding like some of that IMSA bull manure from some egotistical jerks .
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“But we don’t want to embarrass ourselves, and the fact is General Motors has made it so clear that they’re excited about this project. They have a long-term commitment there, and I don’t know what else we can do.”
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So Mario, why do you put up with that crap? Why not just go somewhere else? and enter multiple cars there instead?

You can be darn sure that F1 won't be in Miami in another 3 years.

People get fed up with bull manure from pisant dictators who don't know anything about racing.

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Autonomous racing completes a world first.

Why didn't they all win first place?

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emailBy George Tamayo | April 29, 2024 11:56 AM ET

The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) completed the world’s first autonomous auto race at the Yas Marina Circuit before a full front straight grandstand on Saturday night. Four cars qualified for the final event to attempt what had never been done before: racing wheel-to-wheel without any human intervention.

The driverless race was won in a last-lap dash by Team TUM (Technical University of Munich) overtaking Italian team Unimore while another German squad, Constructor AI, took the final podium position.

Earlier in the evening, former Formula 1 driver Danill Kvyat participated in another groundbreaking exhibition competing with the Technology Innovation Institute’s AI-driven car. Over the course of several laps of Yas Marina’s F1 Circuit, the two traded positions, demonstrating the AI car’s ability to interact with the unpredictability of a human driver. In the end, the AI car finished the demonstration race just 10.38 seconds behind Kvyat.

Eight team in all were entered for the inaugural race. After three rounds of single-car style qualifying, the top four advanced to the final race. American team Code 19 racing struggled, posting the sixth-best time. Nevertheless, team principal Lawrence Walter was thrilled to be part of the first of its kind event.

“So many firsts have been achieved here today. It’s been an amazing start,” he said.



The pole-winning car from Italian entry Polimove shot off to an early lead following the first two laps of the planned eight-lap contest being run in virtual safety car conditions to allow the cars to get the tires of the Dallara Super Formula SF23 up to temperature.

Polimove’s lead would unfortunately be short-lived. Coming into the chicane at the end of Yas Marina’s long back straight, the car, nicknamed ‘Eva,’ locked the rear wheels under braking and looped it for a spin. The second-place car from Unimore passed safely to take over the lead, but with Eva stuck on track, the race was red-flagged.

The race was restarted following another couple of VSC laps, setting up a one-lap dash to the finish.

Unimore’s ‘Gianna’ got the jump when the race returned to green. Leading into the same chicane that befell its Italian counterpart earlier in the race, Gianna went wide entering the first left hand corner opening the door for TUM’s ‘Hailey’ to take the more aggressive line for the lead and hold it to the finish for the win.

“This event has been nothing short of extraordinary, and the finale was our defining moment,” said TUM team principal Simon Hoffman. “We are absolutely thrilled with the outcome; it speaks volumes about our collective engineering prowess, coding expertise, and sheer determination. It’s a testament to the incredible power of AI driving the evolution of autonomous mobility into the future!”