Showcasing groundbreaking technology in such a public arena as the Yas Marina Formula 1 circuit to more than 1 million global streaming views was a fittingly bold way for the A2RL - Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League - to begin last April.
Now the world-leading autonomous A2RL series is preparing for its second major event on November 15 in Abu Dhabi, and there’s the expectation from the organisers of another significant advancement in the autonomous technology, as the championship prepares to field up to six fully autonomous in the grand final race this year.
The Race spoke to A2RL’s head of racing operations Josh Roles, as part of The Race F1 Tech Show Podcast, to find out what’s changed for season two.
An upgraded car
A2RL uses an autonomous Dallara Super Formula SF23, one of the fastest single-seaters outside of F1 that reaches speeds of up to 300km/h.
Teams are all given the hardware and basic software, and they’re tasked with developing complex algorithms that can simultaneously assess changing grip levels, outsmart opponents and, of course, set fast laptimes.
The base car has been upgraded for season two, renamed the EAV-25, and has a new set of safety, reliability and powertrain enhancements versus its predecessor.
The teams’ programming will determine the car’s real-time decision-making, but A2RL provides the ‘autonomous stack’, the sensor and computing package.
This has been overhauled this year, containing a sensor fusion architecture that better assesses the conditions around the car.
That means there are a number of additional sensors on the cars this year, which form part of a more streamlined data stream that improves the split-second decision-making the autonomous vehicles need to make to compete with their human counterparts.
“This year in particular, we've upgraded the cars,” Roles, whose CV includes a stint being Fernando Alonso’s number two mechanic at McLaren, told The Race.
“So I think the learnings from last year was that the technology we developed was great. Of course, you can always build on technology, right?
“What we're doing here is trying to create technology here in the UAE. Our first mission as such was to build on the technology we created from season one.”
Alongside a number of safety improvements, the technical changes include an upgraded alternator, a new Honda OEM unit that’s more compact with less inertia.
There are also shorter gear ratios that will enable teams to extract better performance from the Yas Marina circuit and there have been gearbox calibration changes to reduce the harshness of the upshifts and downshifts while creating a more progressive power delivery.
24/7 testing
Fundamental to the improvements has been far more testing of the algorithms in a virtual environment.
“We did a lot of stuff in a digital twin environment,” Roles explained. “To put cars on track is complex, expensive and comes with high risk, certainly when it’s about autonomy and autonomous racing.
“We created a platform that allows teams to deploy their AI software in an exact replica digital twin environment of Yas Marina Circuit and with the vehicle itself.
“Now we progressed that sim sprint to be able to race in Suzuka, in a fictional track, in addition to Yas Marina.
“And the idea is that we wanted to create a digital league that allows teams to perfect their AI code before they put it into the car, and basically reduce the gap of simulation to reality.
“So the idea is they can basically run their algorithms and their AI 24/7 at the cost of effectively a PC. That same code can be uploaded into the real car, and they can put it on track and race.
“This also allows us to open up the number of competitors who can access our car, but in a digital environment first, to show us they have what it takes to get their hands on an autonomous racing car and race wheel to wheel, in real life.”
There’s now less reliance on GPS data and more on the in-car sensors that will be feeding back data from the extreme range of conditions a real-world racing circuit produces.
“The car is seeing 360 degrees around it at any one point and processing millions of lines of data and code all simultaneously,” Roles added.
“And the teams have to ensure that their sensor fusion is up to the job. We give them the platform, the very high-specification computers to process all of this data.
“But if they don't code it to be efficient - you know what software can be like if it's not coded efficiently, they will not process in time. That's when you start to see the strengths and weaknesses of particular teams.
“It's really impressive with how we see some teams process data in different ways. And I think there's a bit of a cultural standpoint as well because the tech challenge is a software challenge, it's an AI-coding challenge.
“So seeing different strategies is very different to what we would typically see in normal motorsport where you're focusing on vehicle dynamics and camber, ride height changes and things like that.
“These guys are just focusing on 'how can I code better? How can I interpret that data better? And how can I make it more efficient to make faster decisions?' ”
How much quicker?
The key question many fans will be wondering is - how much quicker will A2RL be in 2025, and how much closer will the autonomous machines be to those piloted by real racing drivers?
“I think from last year, we will see a considerable amount of, probably more importantly, consistency, which I think is what you want to see when you want to see racing,” Roles explained.
“Now, that's not to say the speeds will be slow because they won't. I've seen these cars going at 260, 270 kilometres an hour already. How far off a human pace are we? I think we're getting very close.”
In 2024, ex-F1 driver Daniil Kvyat raced against an autonomous machine, winning by over 10 seconds.
But Roles expects that gap to close in 2025: “I think we will be less than five seconds off the pace, I hope. And obviously that's a big step from last year.”
A2RL is a multi-year project so the progress will continue into 2026, where Roles expects there to be a bigger injection of motorsport thinking into it.
“From a motorsport perspective, the last 10% [of performance] is always the toughest 10% [to find], right?” Rowles acknowledges.
“But for sure when you start taking into account vehicle dynamics and how the car performs and behaves under certain conditions, it's why we're now pushing teams to start incorporating members and people with a lot of motorsport experience, rather than just hard coding and focusing on getting the car around the track.
“We want them to now bring motorsport professional strategists, vehicle dynamicists and things like that into the picture to start planning for probably what will be another rule change in 2026 where we will start pushing a bit more motorsport onto the team, see how they can handle it and ultimately see how the cars perform because we're developing technology, but this is a motorsport event.”
More teams
One of the most important changes is an expanded field of 11 elite research teams with teams from France and Japan joining for the first time - alongside returning teams from the USA, Germany, China, Singapore, Italy and the UAE.
Last year the final took place between the top four races but this number will be expanded to a minimum of six cars for 2025.
The event is free for fans - tickets can be found here - to attend, with over 10,000 spectators visiting the inaugural event last year. And there’s been plenty of A2RL activity at the Yas Marina circuit since then to ensure a big step is made in 2025.
“I think what's a shame is that the public don't get to see how much testing we put in behind closed doors,” Roles said.
“So obviously we're based here at Yas Marina. We're very fortunate to be on the doorstep of the circuit. And we do invite the teams here regularly to test, to try new algorithms, to work with us to develop new hardware solutions and things like that.
“I think from an event perspective, it will be just as spectacular as last year. We'll have the fan zone. We'll have a minimum of six cars this year on track.
“Actually that's all thanks to how we've structured the competition, with the qualifying and the sprint races and things which will all happen behind closed doors.
“So there's a lot leading up to the race that the public won't see, but it should put us on a course for success for November 15.”
A2RL has deliberately made this very ambitious technology drive a very public display. It acknowledges it “learned the hard way” how difficult it is to have an autonomous racing vehicle tackle the tricky Yas Marina conditions with all the real-world variables that virtual simulations can’t predict.
Roles added: “As SpaceX has demonstrated, meaningful innovation demands a readiness and willingness to fail in public. Advancing science in the open allows us to learn quickly, adapt and push the boundaries of what’s possible, whilst being held accountable.”
A2RL has been very hard at work behind the scenes, and it’s keen to ensure the impressive progress it has made privately will be on display when it returns to the public eye in November.
