Our Athlete’s Voice series gives athletes a forum to talk about how technology has impacted their careers and their lives away from sports. This week, FIA Formula E champion Lucas di Grassi discusses the recent evolution of the motorsports industry and his role with autonomous racing series Roborace.

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Formula E driver Lucas di Grassi grew up racing karts in São Paulo, Brazil. In 2000, he finished fifth in the Formula A World Championship and won the Pan American Championship. He switched to single-seater cars in 2002, and moved to the U.K. in 2004 to compete in British Formula 3. He won F3’s Macau Grand Prix in 2005, and finished runner-up in the 2007 GP2 series. Di Grassi raced for a single season with the short-lived Virgin Racing team in 2010, and would go on to place second in the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Audi in 2014.

When Alejandro Agag, one of Formula E’s founders and the CEO of Formula E Holdings, was looking for a driver to help develop the concept for the all-electric series, he approached di Grassi. The Brazilian became Formula E’s first test driver and took part in street demos aimed at building support ahead of the launch in 2014. Di Grassi would win the very first race, the 2014 Beijing E-Prix, the 2016-17 championship, and has the second most wins of any driver in Formula E history.

Di Grassi has long been interested in innovation and sustainability. In 2007, he founded a non-governmental organization called Smarter Driving that aimed to improve fuel conservation. He has also founded a Brazilian electric bicycle company called EDG, which launched an e-bike made of a niobium-steel alloy in 2017. The same year he joined the in-development autonomous racing league Roborace as CEO. Di Grassi was named as a UN Environment Clean Air Advocate in 2018.

Di Grassi is now the Roborace’s chairman, and continues to balance that role with his own professional racing career—he is still actively competing with the Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler Formula E team. Every two months, he participates in a Roborace test, putting down a lap time in a car, then challenging Roborace’s autonomous technology and algorithms to beat him. And while he hasn’t yet lost, the machines are closing in every time.

On the development of autonomous technology in sports…

“Regardless of everybody’s opinions, technology seems not to progress in a straight line. We have seen technology advancements in combustion, electric and now, because of a convergence of bigger technologies like data transfer and 5G, which are allowing the computing power to get better and cheaper, we have reached the point of a car being driven by a robot.”

“It would be safer and cheaper than a human. Motorsports has always been ahead, at the edge of [vehicle] technology, but with automation, it’s a very tricky game. How can we implement such technology into the motorsports world to create opportunities for everybody? We don’t want to ignore it and then be completely destroyed. We want to make it work for motorsport in a racing platform with development into commercial vehicles after.”

On whether AI sports are still sports...

“Usually with most people, the criticism is about a nostalgic feeling. They have the belief that motorsport is about the human being, the risk humans are allowed to take. I agree. I think a lot of these feelings will be gone when you replace the driver with a robot, but a lot of other opportunities will emerge. Look at how many kids want to be programmers, how many lives we are going to save. There are downsides, but there are also huge upsides.”

“It’s a different type of sport, a different type of future. If you want to watch humans racing each other, you’ll still be able to watch that. Regardless of the technology, people will still want to see humans compete against each other. We don’t have to be against it. People are free to make their own choices.”

“Electric cars seven or eight years ago were a hot topic in the same way autonomous is today. With Formula E, I was the first one to hop on board and say yes, this makes sense, and I helped them to create it. It’s the same philosophy: motorsport needs to evolve. We cannot be attached to nostalgic feelings.”

On humans competing against robots…

“We do that now. Every two months we do a challenge called the Lucas di Grassi Challenge where it’s me against the latest algorithm on the race car. I drive the car and then the algorithm tries to beat my lap time with artificial intelligence. We’ve seen a difference between me and the computer decreasing quite a lot and quite fast. We had a 3.65% difference [recently], whereas two years ago it was close to 20%. I have no doubt whatsoever that in a few years, given the right investments and environment, that an autonomous car can be quicker than any driver in the world in any condition.”

“The computer is already much faster than humans in many areas. Overall, the computer is 100 times faster than a human’s reflexes. When reacting to, for example, a spotlight or someone in front of the car, humans take two to three seconds to react. With the robot, we’re talking milliseconds. Other more complex topics like, for example, do you overtake or do you not overtake? The human is still better than the computer.”

On the impact of simulators and esports...

“We now have a lot more data of the race track and car. The mathematical models of simulations are becoming very realistic, more and more. Now they’re reaching a point where you can test a lot of things for Roborace, for Formula E, for Formula 1. Because of the limitations of cost that you have [in road testing], simulators are becoming more and more in-use and I see a big future for simulators and also for gaming in general.”

“Simulators give you a faster rate of improvement because you can spend more time in it. It’s good for reflexes, for concentration. We can be in races for tens of hours before coming to a race track. With Formula E, we spend four or five days before the race in the simulator preparing. The ratio is 4:1—four days in simulator for every one race. We scan the track with lasers so you can view a virtual model and practice on specific tracks.”

“Virtual games and championships are becoming more known. Pretty much every driver over the past year, the generation 10 years younger than me, they already grew up on simulators. You have to be comfortable driving both simulators and race cars if you want to be a professional driver now. If you drive only simulators, or only race cars, it’s not enough. You have to prepare on both.”

On the evolution of motorsports...

“I met the founder of Roborace, Denis [Sverdlov], back in 2015 and we discussed different topics. One of the topics was about autonomous driving and automation. A few months later, he said ‘Let’s create some automation in racing.’ And that’s how my life in Roborace started.”

“I raced in Formula 1, Formula 3, I raced in the U.S., sports cars, and Formula E. I helped to create Roborace from the beginning. It’s the same principle: motorsport keeps evolving and motorsport is very interlinked with the [automobile] industry. Electric cars seven or eight years ago were a hot topic in the same way autonomous is today. With Formula E, I was the first one to hop on board and say yes, this makes sense, and I helped them to create it. It’s the same philosophy: motorsport needs to evolve. We cannot be attached to nostalgic feelings.

“F1 is going through a problem right now because Formula 1, which has the most investment from automakers, is not anymore at the top of the food chain. It’s not anymore at the top of technology because Formula 1 nowadays has very little new technology that can be applied to a commercial road car. The main technologies right now are electric or autonomous, which will create a huge problem for Formula 1 in the near future.”

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