Roborace sets benchmark for autonomous cars at Goodwood Festival of Speed 10.07.2019: Roborace laid down the first ever official timed autonomous run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard hillclimb this weekend.

Roborace laid down the first ever official timed autonomous run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard hillclimb this weekend.




DevBot 2.0, the company’s self-driving race car took to the Hill in the blazing sun on the Saturday of the event racing up the 1.16miles of the course in 66.96 seconds and reaching a top speed of 162kph.



 
Last year Roborace claimed the record for the first ever fully autonomous run up the hill at 2018’s Festival of Speed using its other self-driving vehicle platform - Robocar. This year’s run improved upon the unofficial time from the previous year by a huge nine seconds.



The self-driving racing series not only impressed the crowds with their record-breaking run, but in the morning they had also treated fans to a showcase of DevBot 2.0’s capabilities as their CEO and Formula E champion, Lucas Di Grassi drove the car manually from the start line before stopping outside Goodwood house, leaping out taking the steering wheel with him leaving the car to complete the hillclimb fully autonomously.



 The Roborace team took the decision to remove the doors of the car for the demonstration to show the shocked audience that there was definitely no human behind the wheel and the car amazed the crowds further by telling the waiting race driver ‘Bye-Bye Lucas’ before it sped off up the course.



“The team are thrilled to have set the first ever official time for an autonomous vehicle at the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb.” Said Bryn Balcombe, Roborace’s Chief Strategy Officer. “We’ve set the benchmark and now we set the challenge to break that record in 2020 as part of Roborace Season Beta.




Our achievements with Robocar & DevBot 2.0 demonstrate the value motorsport plays in driving innovation and public engagement. We’ve now opened access to these vehicle platforms for research, software, sensors, compute & simulation innovations that will push these boundaries forward. Come join us on the journey!”



Dan Garlick, General Manager of the Goodwood Festival of Speed commented: “This year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed presented by Mastercard truly shook up the established order, and Roborace produced a really significant performance.



“We saw the DevBot 2.0 raise the bar for what autonomous vehicles can achieve, which was fitting during a weekend when Volkswagen’s all-electric ID.R demolished the 20-year-old record for the outright fastest time on the Hill. Roborace has brought a whole new story to the sport that has really struck a chord with the crowd.”



DevBot 2.0 is the hero vehicle for Roborace’s inaugural Season Alpha - the first experimental season of the competition which started earlier this year in Monteblanco, Spain.  Roborace provides identical hardware to teams taking part in the competition and they provide the software to drive the cars - making it a competition of intelligence.





This first season will see the company trial different formats at locations across Europe in preparation for Season Beta the following year and the first full season in 2021.



 Coverage of Season Alpha events can be found on Roborace’s YouTube channel, along with all of the activity at Goodwood Festival of Speed.
 



Victoria Tomlinson, photos Roborace