Fans of Formula 1 will know that the safety car used in this year’s championship (and since 2015) is the Mercedes-AMG GT S, driven by Bernd Maylander, a former successful touring car racing driver. However, Maylander’s services may no longer be required in the future, as the FIA could look to promote autonomous driving technology.
In an interview with Motorsport.com, Marcin Budkowski, the head of the F1 technical department, suggested that a driverless safety car would help to promote autonomous technologies “We have spoken about an unmanned safety car. It would promote a technology about which there is a bit of scepticism and, instead, it could be shown that it works,” said Budkowski.
However, don’t expect such technologies to make their way to the race cars themselves, as Budkowski believes turning it into another Roborace will ruin the F1 spectacle. “The safety car driver would no longer be essential, because it would leave the controls to the computer. But we must be aware of the attraction of race cars without drivers: the engineers would love it, but not the fans,” he explained.
As such, Budkowski also revealed some scepticism on the idea of autonomous technology in racing, and has doubts whether F1 without drivers will be able to pull in a crowd. “I see it (Roborace) as a very interesting thing, which pushes things in one direction. But can this idea of having no F1 driver captivate millions around the world? Frankly I have doubts,” he noted.
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Yeah why not driverless race cars too.
Driver-less F1 and safety cars? I might as well play the VR game on on my laptop with a cup of Latte on my side.
We will be watching no driver racing in the future
Since F1 no longer in Holland, robot drivers will bring F1 to ‘holland’
Wow, I remember Top Gear who mentioned that safety cars with their ‘underpowered’ cars compared to the race cars were driven at the very limit just to keep the racing cars engines sufficiently cooled and with tires sufficiently heated up. And now they want to robotize the safety cars while being driven at the limit?
That would really be some programming, unless the safety cars were way above the performance level of the racing cars or just merely a motorized rabbit like greyhound dog races that go round the track.
driverless formula 1 race anyone?
The have the virtual safety car already, an icon flashes on the driver’s steering wheel and the driver cannot overtake or go beyond a certain speed limit.
No headache and far less money involved :D
F1 is too boring now. Better not to watch the race.