I am unashamedly fascinated by the concept of Roborace. This new international series proposes to remove the human from the loop and have purely autonomous racing. I have already explored the huge implications of the concept of autonomous motor racing in the feature article on this site ‘Summoning the demon’ but with more details emerging about the new Roborace car I thought I would look at that machine specifically.
The car itself is a striking looking thing, not surprising considering that it is the work of Dan Simon, the man behind the wonderful Cosmic Racers books. But I must say I am rather disappointed by the fact that the series will use a one make car, this prevents engineers and car designers from really pushing the limits of what can be done without having to worry about accommodating the driver and keeping them safe. But I assume this has been done initially to prevent exactly that from happening. The constructor of the car has yet to be announced though I don’t think the odds on Dallara being the chosen supplier are very long. However the dimensions of the car have been announced, that the car is 4,800mm long and has a 2,000mm track with a wheelbase of 2,800 metres. It will weigh in at 1,000kg. Peak speeds according to sources at Roborace will be around 186mph.
It is interesting as this car is expected to race on the same circuits as Formula E, the quoted performance of the still to be named Robocar is notably higher than that of the Dallara...