Why Roborace can be good for motorsport

Roborace is the newly announced race series for autonomous racing cars. You might think that it will start a new era of emotionless motorsport or, more likely, fail and disappear after the investor runs out of cash.

In my opinion, neither of those fates will happen.

The guy behind it, Denis Sverdlov, is a cool, crazy-smart Russian, who I had the pleasure to meet at a Formula E race. He has the three Bs needed: balls, brains and budget. So he just might combine what's needed to succeed and turn Roborace into a fully developed technology race series.

He is also swimming with the current. There's a consensus between car manufacturers that fully or mostly autonomous cars should be the future of human mobility, specially aided by the development of artificial intelligence, more precise sensors and connected cars.

But how does this help the drivers and motorsport?

Some series are dominated by projects from major manufacturers © XPB

Well, this is the key issue and depends on the decisions from the 'federation'. If the FIA sees it through, they might use Roborace to satisfy the manufacturers' need for development of technology and leave standard motorsport more human again.

I would like to see a clear split between the FIA championships: Roborace leading the way for the advance of commercially relevant autonomous technology, and the other series turning it more to entertainment and to low-cost, driver-dependent sport.

Yes, driver quality is still a determinant on success today, but the difference between a good and an average driver is mostly overshadowed by the quality of the car.

It's quite frustrating to see top drivers struggling at the back of the field. In most open-technology series like F1, WEC, WRC and so on, if the driver doesn't have a good car he will struggle to be at the front. And every year, new systems, sensors and software are introduced that do that specific job better than the driver himself.

Of course I'm not saying we should abandon technology and go back in time with standard motorsport. But leave all the driver-aid technology, sensors, high-cost gimmicks and experimental technology - like four-wheel steer with four-wheel torque vectoring - to be used by Roborace and/or other similar series.

Although I don't expect motorsport to draw the crowds that it once did, because the new generations are not so much into cars as we were, it will never fail as a sport.

There will always be enough people that just love racing cars. Human spirit is what drives motorsport. That's why turning motorsport into a more human, driver-controlled, relevant sport for the future is key. And that's why I think Roborace might eventually help motorsport and us, the drivers.

For the next column I will dig deeper into the technologies that we might see present at Roborace and which ones I would see taken out of the current racing cars, and explain why.

WHAT TO EXPECT FROM ROBORACE
Mark Preston, Team Aguri

Horse racing is still around, and it's the sporting version of a previous method of transportation. So I would say the same would happen for car racing, because there's no reason that people won't want to watch it in the future.

Having humans in any sport adds a randomness that makes it exciting. Sebastien Buemi having a problem in qualifying [in Buenos Aires] meant the race was more exciting. My thing has always been that motorsport has to be relevant to the world, but it has to introduce random events.

During the full-course yellow periods, at 50km/h, autonomous technlogy could easily be made safe for Formula E. You could do demo runs first of all, maybe with a course car and then a medical car.

As you build confidence and knowledge it gives confidence to the consumer. We could have one running next year. At what point, I'm not quite sure. The good thing about racing is stuff can be developed faster.

Conventional race-car layouts could change if there were no drivers in them © LAT

We have to be relevant to the real world. Some of that stuff in the future can happen faster than you think. We'd have to play about with the rules but it's all totally possible.

On an electric car you need less drag. The draggiest thing is the wheels and the rear wing. The most efficient thing is the floor. So you take away the front wings that are sensitive, and have a huge flat floor with really benign aero so the computers don't get confused by a slipstream.

You reduce the turbulence and weight behind the car by taking off the wing. Cover the wheels, and reduce drag around the car by wrapping all round the suspension.

You'd move the weight - in the case of an electric vehicle or computer-operated machine, the batteries and hardware - to wherever is best for the tyres. Whatever tyre you're running you'd design the car around that. We can digress into tyres for hours but they are often made for the car, so keeping weight distribution somewhere near the middle would be the right place in the beginning.

You don't need a rollhoop. That's up high because when you draw the line between the helmet and the monocoque it has to be 50mm above the driver. So without a driver, that can all come down. The only reason the car is high is how the driver sits. That defines a lot of the height.

By not having a person in the cockpit you can really shrink everything down. But they'll be big cars, not microcars.