Created to push the frontier of autonomous driving technology, A2RL views each race as “science in the public domain” – with some of the world’s brightest minds in autonomy and robotics pushing AI technology to its limits in the largest event of its kind.
Before A2RL’s debut in 2024, no more than one car had driven autonomously on a racetrack. The inaugural event saw four cars on track simultaneously, and in Season 2, A2RL will challenge six teams to race at once. To achieve this extraordinary feat, organizers behind A2RL have built the EAV-25 (pictured above), a comprehensively upgraded version of last year’s EAV-24 car.
Improving the reliability of autonomous operation was a central consideration for A2RL’s engineering team. As such, the Season 2 car features a number of enhancements over the previous model. This includes upgrades to many of its key components, including the steering system, Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) and 5G antennas, upgraded electronics, motorsports-spec wiring looms, and more.
In terms of safety, the EAV-25 brings battery upgrades, improvements to the emergency braking system, and a secondary Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU). The powertrain has also received select improvements to the alternator and gearbox, and a new fuel line to minimize the risk of fuel leakage.
While autonomous car tech often goes hand in hand with electric drivetrains, the EAV-25 traces its lineage to the Dallara SF23 raced in Japan’s Super Formula Championship and remains powered by a 450hp variant of Super Formula’s 2-liter, four-cylinder Honda engine.
“Our initial approach was to hit the ground running,” says Alex Winkler, Head of Sporting at A2RL. “That meant a pre-existing high-performance platform designed for motorsport, but with the capacity for autonomous conversion. The SF23 allowed us to develop a fully autonomous racecar in just eight months – something that would not have been possible otherwise. An ICE race car also opens up opportunities to explore other sustainable mobility technologies, such as alternative fuels.”
This year, A2RL also put the teams through an intensive SIM-Sprint virtual race series, enabling them to accelerate the development and refinement of their driving algorithms. SIM-Sprint allowed the teams to explore challenging “edge cases” prior to the real-world event, while also familiarizing the competitors – who come from different backgrounds – with race direction and the motorsport environment.
“Here you’re not racing against something that you can ‘loop,’” says Winkler. “You’re racing against other AI drivers that ‘think’ differently to you, and it’s all live, in real-time. Their behavior evolves, reacting to competitors and racing conditions. They learn from the previous lap about how to take the next one better, and that shifts the dynamic of how the vehicles interact on the track.
“Our SIM-Sprint is fundamentally an esports-style challenge, but it stands apart from typical gaming platforms. We run a bespoke environment built to validate cutting-edge autonomous-driving algorithms and real-world sporting regulations. While we don’t claim to match the sheer fidelity of a full Formula 1 team simulator, the combination of high-quality vehicle dynamics, rare multi-agent racing scenarios, and regulatory stress-testing makes it one of the most advanced – and valuable – simulation programs in autonomous motorsport today.”
BLUE SKY THINKING
The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL) debuted as a car-based competition in 2024, but this year it took to the skies with its first drone competition, held in Abu Dhabi’s ADNEC Marina Hall last April.
While drone racing isn’t exactly new, A2RL’s contest – developed in conjunction with the Drone Champions’ League – featured entirely autonomous machines entered by 14 teams. They battled through intense head-to-head aerial competition in a world first.
The aim, much like the circuit racing competition, was to see how autonomous systems can operate and adapt in real-world scenarios, and to innovate the tech to push forward its development and adoption for real-world applications.
The A2RL X DCL Drone Championship was open to teams of researchers, academics and enthusiasts from all over the world, who raced identical quadcopter drones with no human input beyond their pre-defined flying algorithms. Even the standing (human) world champion of DCL was outmatched by the winning team’s autonomous racing drone in a unique AI vs. Human Challenge.
For Season 2, in January 2026, the challenge evolves. While speed was the primary focus of the first season, ’26 will shift toward agility and precision. Teams will face a more technically complex track featuring dynamic obstacles and mission-style tasks that test perception, planning and adaptive navigation under pressure.
The 2025 edition of the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League takes place Nov. 15. Learn more about A2RL at a2rl.io, follow on Instagram, @autonomousracingleague, and check it out on YouTube, @AutonomousRacingLeague. And to attend A2RL 2025, go to registration.a2rl.io.
