COMPUTER SAYS NO

A2RL is a new Abu Dhabi backed autonomous race series... can AI, er, keep its cool and outsprint The Stig?

- JACK RIX

What do these things have in common: Take That’s new tour, paint drying and autonomous racing? That’s right! They’re the three things I’m least excited about watching in the known universe, and yet I’m sat on the Yas Marina start/finish straight, in Abu Dhabi, along with 10,000 other slightly confused members of the public, cheering on a bunch of racecars fitted with sensors and PCs where humans with otherworldly driving skills and gladiatorial mindsets normally sit. The leader has just spun out on an innocuous left hander, and the other three competitors have ground to a halt, line astern, behind it, unable to fathom going past anything car-shaped under a yellow flag. I’ve seen our autonomous future and it involves very long tailbacks on the motorway.

As a racing spectacle it is an unmitigated disaster. Later, when a team from the Technical University of Munich takes the chequered flag and lion’s share of the $2.25m prize pot (and most of the spectators have wandered off), a 3D drone show and military-grade firework display turn a blind eye to this... while reminding everyone of how many hundreds of millions the Abu Dhabi government has spent on this very public science experiment. It’s called A2RL, the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League. And no, we don’t know where the 2 comes from either.

Except, the razzle dazzle of race night is just the glaze on the doughnut. The human effort that’s dragged it to this point and the grand idea going forward is far more compelling. We’ll get to that, but first let’s rewind three days – Stig has miraculously made it through customs and been released from his hardshell travel case, we have the Yas Marina F1 circuit to ourselves... and the chance to conduct a little science experiment of our own.