# Driverless formula one cars? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [June 26, 2011, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919 "2011-06-26T17:32:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 6:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/21 "2011-06-30T06:22:10Z")
> [@Gatopescado](#): > > I think the real challenge would be to teach the AI to “feel” the slip of the tires for max performance. In my opinion, the lap time of a top driver would probably best the maximum of a driverless car by maybe a couple of tenths a lap (depending on circuit length) just because you can’t teach a computer to “hang it out”. Ain’t no way. What do you think ABS systems are doing? Slip is just variance between wheelspeed and ground speed and a computer could be detecting this on each wheel individually and reacting to it with a speed that human reflexes can only dream about. Human reflexes are in the low tenths of seconds. Computer reflexes can be hundredths of thousands of seconds if not faster. By the time a human had figured out there was some slip the computer would have known about it a few million clock cycles ago to several decimal places and corrected based upon exact recall of what had worked previously. I should think with some development a computer would be sending an F1 car around faster than a human and be able to do so, without error, every single lap. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/22 "2011-06-30T14:23:09Z")
In 1968-69 the world was utterly captivated by the technogical Tour de Force being employed to put a man on the moon. Apollo 7 - the men burnt to death on the launch pad. Then closer steps, Apollo8, Apollo 9, then Apollo 10 did several orbits around the moon. Then… THE BIG ONE… Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong’s “One small step for man!” I still remember it clearly, watching it live at primary school with my best friend at the time. And as we all know, just 2 launches later, Apollo 13 didn’t even get any live airtime as it left the launch pad. The Tour de Force had reached it’s peak and global interest clearly fell off a cliff - until of course, the 3 guys looked like they were stranded in space. My point being? It’s not unreasonable to suggest a similar fate would befall driverless Formula One cars. The Killing Years, 1950-1975 were the true genesis of Formula One as we know it today. It took until 1976 before an entire year went by without at least one fatality in Formula One. It was a frighteningly dangerous sport with many drivers being burnt to death - in monstrous flames live on TV. Horrific stuff. But at a gladiatorial level, it captivated the audiences of many countries around the globe. That the Killing Years have passed us by is a good thing, and I for one, will never criticise a Tilke designed track ever again when I consider the incredible safety which is built into his tracks nowadays. That the sport is already as sanitised as it can be, in the interests of safety, indicates that like the Apollo program, interest would fall off a cliff pretty quickly without the element of danger to human mortality involved. ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/23 "2011-06-30T14:44:47Z")
> [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](#): > > The Killing Years, 1950-1975 were the true genesis of Formula One as we know it today. It took until 1976 before an entire year went by without at least one fatality in Formula One. It was a frighteningly dangerous sport with many drivers being burnt to death - in monstrous flames live on TV. Horrific stuff. But at a gladiatorial level, it captivated the audiences of many countries around the globe. There is a truly gut wrenching[BBC documentary](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00z8v18) on that very subject. I saw it a little while back and the final scene in will haunt me for some time. Not sure where you can get it from but anyone enjoying F1 will find it enthralling and horrifying at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelEmouse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/michaelemouse/32/101_2.png) [@MichaelEmouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelEmouse)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/24 "2011-06-30T15:27:14Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > Not sure where you can get it from but anyone enjoying F1 will find it enthralling and horrifying at the same time. Is this it? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYmF9XadH8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYmF9XadH8) ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/25 "2011-06-30T20:46:19Z")
> [@MichaelEmouse](#): > > Is this it? [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYmF9XadH8](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHYmF9XadH8) Yep, that’s it. My tube-fu was weak with that one. Couldn’t find it anywhere. I’d definitely recommend it to any motor racing fan. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [June 30, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/26 "2011-06-30T23:39:41Z")
Yes, thank you. I grew up with all that as I was born in 1945. I remember Jackie Stewart well. He was extremely popular in my circles. (Bakersfield, CA, USA) These replies have made this a very enjoyable thread. ---
**Author:** ![Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boo_Boo_Foo)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/27 "2011-07-01T00:33:30Z")
By all reports, a young Jackie Stewart was also a European shooting champion if memory serves me correctly. Shotguns in particular. Definitely Olympic standard. Mark Webber’s crash at Valencia last year, where he tried to “touch the Hand of God”, is an illustration of how far Formula One safety has come since the Killing Years. A similar shunt would have trapped the driver in a mass of flames 40 years ago, I rather think. And the driver would probably have been pretty badly mangled too, even without the fire. It’s generally agreed that almost every class of motor racing now (except I guess for production based cars) has evolved to a point that the cars have to be artificially constrained for safety purposes. Average speeds of 240+mph on the super ovals for the IRL cars was getting to the point that drivers were on the verge of blackouts due to g-force blood pooling etc. And F1 cars could probably do 400+mph if every bit of banned technology was allowed to run again. Same deal in Le Mans prototypes and NASCAR. They’re all being constrained for reasons of driver safety. Which brings us back to the original question. I’m thinking a 400+mph driverless Formula One car would be interesting… to a very narrow audience I suspect… for a fairly short attention span. ---
**Author:** ![mangeorge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d78d45/32.png) [@mangeorge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mangeorge)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2011, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919/28 "2011-07-01T00:54:37Z")
> [@Boo\_Boo\_Foo](#): > > Which brings us back to the original question. I’m thinking a 400+mph driverless Formula One car would be interesting… to a very narrow audience I suspect… for a fairly short attention span. Audience? I thing millions worldwide if it were driver vs robocar. But short time interest? Probably. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/driverless-formula-one-cars/586919.md?page=1)