Why driverless cars are right for motorsport

Out of nowhere, Formula E's driverless support series announcement last Friday was a bombshell that wrestling legend and internet meme sensation Randy Orton would have been proud of.

So, is the advent of a racing category populated by autonomous racing cars a pointless gimmick that further erodes the purity of the sport? There's no doubting people will view the slimming down of 'man and machine' to just 'machine' that way, but it shouldn't be seen as something so black and white.

At its most basic level motorsport is the competition of motor vehicles. Roborace has that covered. But of course it removes drivers, a big part of motorsport's appeal.

Is it a fundamental part, though?

Don't expect to see driverless racing taking over motorsport just yet © LAT

You only need to utter the slightest negativity about Ayrton Senna or Gilles Villeneuve online to receive an avalanche of abuse. There's no doubting that, historically, the person in the seat has struck a chord with those watching trackside or at home.

But as driver coach Rob Wilson rightly pointed out in his excellent recent column on driving styles, it is becoming ever harder for the average fan to identify a personality on track. That in turn limits the possibility for that fan to form an affinity with a particular driver.

Take a look at the fan survey Autosport launched in conjunction with F1 Racing and Motorsport News. When nearly 35,000 people were asked to name their favourite driver, 'no favourite' was the sixth most popular response. The suggestion is that individual driver followings are dwindling. Take that to its next logical step, and are drivers as a whole as important to the spectacle - could it not just be fast racing cars going wheel to wheel is the bigger draw?

Of course the human element has its appeal and there will always be people who prefer that. But online series iRacing is extremely popular and it's a worthwhile comparison to Roborace, even if it is sim racing with real players at its heart, so doesn't go quite as far as the new Formula E support series.

But the competitors are by no means big names in the traditional motorsport sense, yet iRacing showpieces like the Pro Race of Champions, NASCAR World Championship Series and Grand Prix World Championship Series attract around 10,000 live viewers - greater audiences than your average British GT round.

Why? Because it's racing that's free and easy to consume, and enjoyable to watch. So, broken down, is that all motorsport really needs to have a future?

The intention here isn't to suggest that drivers are obsolete. Far from it - the British Touring Car Championship and MotoGP, to take just two examples, owe their popularity to the characters involved. I also dislike it when people assert that drivers can't make a difference anymore.

MotoGP thrives on the star quality of its big names © LAT

But if you're looking at motorsport's long-term future as a whole, there is reason to think it will be in a world without drivers, so it's important to ascertain whether or not it can exist in that world.

Motorsport lives in its own little bubble at times, but it's dangerous to assume it is timeless, at least in its current form. After all, the first organised motor vehicle race was more than 150 years ago. But racing in general - whether that's running races, chariot races, sled dog races - is rooted in human history.

Extreme as it might sound, the concept of motorsport probably has an expiry date. One day, like it or not, the driven car will be a memory and driverless vehicles, whatever shape they take, will be the norm.

Does that mean motorsport will die as a knock-on effect? Possibly. Does it mean it has to? Not necessarily. Maybe it's in fact the idea behind Roborace, if not the series itself, that could be the catalyst for a shift in motorsport's position in, not to mention its relevance to, wider society.

After all, the reason motorsport has been able to put in such a good innings is because of the relevance it can have to the wider world. Something that brings driverless cars into the motorsport fold will only strengthen its pertinence.

Motorsport's longevity is the result of the interest big companies have in it. But nowadays, serious motorsport only attracts manufacturer interest if there's a wider relevance. Pushing boundaries in technology is what attracts car companies to motorsport, which in turn attracts audiences.

Where is the manufacturer interest right now? Formula 1, the World Endurance Championship, Formula E and rallying, too. The parts of the sport that push technology to the limit and drive development.

Manufacturer interest waxes and wanes depending on whether the major car companies can get something out of being in motorsport. Formula E, for example, is attracting interest and the longer it goes on, the bigger the names it'll attract. But electric vehicles are just the tip of the iceberg.

Even on conventional road cars, more and more features are added each year that gradually reduce the level of input required to drive the vehicle. Mercedes wants to build a car that can overtake on motorways autonomously. So does Nissan. Eventually, both want completely autonomous vehicles. As does Jaguar. And Tesla. Google already has one, and it's not even a car company. The aim is for these vehicles to be available to the public by 2020.

The automobile as we know it is changing before our eyes. It's morphing into something that traditional motorsport doesn't quite fit into.

Roborace has a lot of questions to face about its legitimacy as a motor racing category, even more so than Formula E when it was launched in its own controversial fashion not so long ago. But part of me wonders how much the average fan will care how the car's being controlled if it gets to a stage where a bold overtake is being pulled off at 150mph, and the racing's good.

Roborace series has to be taken seriously in motorsport circles

It's not Scalextric, as some have liked to joke, because even that requires a greater element of human control. But like most, I'm sure, I want to see how the driverless cars perform on track. They need to be 'driven' properly and competitively.

Until then, they'll only ever be a sideshow to the main act - so if you are a traditionalist, there's nothing to immediately fear.

But the more time and money invested in the technology, the better the motor racing spectacle becomes and the more progress is made in terms of convincing the wider world that these are legitimate alternatives to conventional cars.

More than a million people die every year in road traffic accidents, so to dismiss driverless cars as being potentially unsafe - which is an argument I have seen or heard from some - it's hypocrisy of the highest order. A disease with that sort of death toll would be considered a pandemic.

Motorsport could play a genuine part in accelerating the development of safe driverless cars. So while Roborace isn't a perfect motorsport concept in the traditional sense, it is engaging in the sort of bold technological exercise that the sport has a history of embracing and excelling in.

The world is changing. This is a great opportunity for motorsport to be at the heart of that evolution, not stuck on the outside fearing its consequences.

Roborace might be the answer to a question nobody in motorsport's really asking right now. But it shouldn't be shunned just because it's a step into the unknown.