Robots Could Perform Pit Stops In DTM's Vision For The Future Of Racing
Series promoter ITR has come up with its own ideas for the future of the championship, prompted by the apparent inevitability that the traditional internal combustion engine’s days are numbered. This is a problem for a championship like DTM, which relies almost entirely on manufacturers who are interested in using the series to promote their road cars: if they stop offering petrol and diesel cars altogether, why go racing with them?
As a result, DTM has come up with a potential route it could go down in the future. It’s full of all sorts of interesting stuff, but the thing that immediately jumps out at us is the idea that pit stops could be performed by robots. Yes, robots.
OK, so the images show the kind of robots that you’d see operating on production lines and not a team of Asimo-style machines with a bipedal humanoid form, which is a bit of pity. It is, however, still rather cool - the driver stops in the box, has their wheels changed by a machine, and then a couple of arms remove and replace the spent batteries or hydrogen fuel cells.
As exciting as it is to see an army of mechanics service a car in just a few seconds, it can be rather dangerous - in F1’s Bahrain Grand Prix last year, a Ferrari mechanic had his leg badly broken as a result of a pit error.
Technically, some series already have ‘robots’ in their pit stops - Super Formula teams use automatic front jacks - but DTM’s idea is to go the whole hog and automate the whole process. Is it feasible? Maybe, maybe not.
With the planned switch to electric power also comes the possibility of using hydrogen fuel cells to generate that power - technology that has been around a while, but has yet to be fully commercialised by the road car industry. By giving it a racing application, the idea is that it would help to drive development of the tech.
Power would also ramp up dramatically, with the current 600bhp cars looking pedestrian in comparison as electric power would boost the output of the cars to over 1000bhp. That hardly seems surprising when you realise that the ITR chairman is a certain Mr Gerhard Berger, a man who wrestled the outrageous turbo monsters of 1980s Formula 1.
It all sounds pretty impressive. It’s important to mention that all of this isn’t definitely going to happen - there’s certainly no time frame given for any changes - but it’s good to see that a championship the size of DTM is proactively looking to the future and realising it’ll have to change if it wants to keep on…well, existing. This probably isn’t exactly what DTM will look like in five or 10 years, but it gives us an idea of where it wants to go.
As long as they keep the pit robots.
A version of this article was originally published on WTF1
Comments
If it can be done better without humans, it should be done without humans.
Human labor will be looked back on as brutal and cruel. Because it is. But a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right
Is that the same for driving then?
Kinda feels like it defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? The pit crew’s success and failure also plays a role in how well the driver/team finish because racing is a team sport.
It would be like looking at Soccer/Football and thinking “You know, this whole ‘Goalie’ idea is a bit outdated and kinda dangerous. I know! We’ll replace them with robots! They’re better and don’t get hurt by flying sports balls!” You could, and that’s true, but… why?
Because engineers f up too
That’s why I watch racing. To see the machines, that are built by humans.
If I wanted human only sport I’d watch soccer.
There go the poor pit crew’s jobs
NO
Robots could also race faster but that’s not the point is it?
My idea of the perfect DTM:
Cars with production car engines derived from their street-legal cousins. Like back in the 80s.
Their idea:
Robots. 1000 hp. More Robots.
Yay, automate everything….. ffs, i swear we’re heading for a future as seen in Wall-e.
No…worse. We’re heading to a future ala Elysium. Meadows and the MIT predicted all this from 1972, and all there curves proved to be deadly accurate to this day. We’re doomed by 2050, and not in a Disneyland cute way :)
iF HUmAns Are InEfFiciENt, rEPLacE tHEm
If this is the case, people should go and watch automated assembly lines and idk, competitive heart surgery.. is that the case? No. I am slowly accepting electric cars, but having the racing, pit stops and strategies done by anything but humans defeats the whole purpose
Having a team helps bring everyone together and not be drowsy little spots. It takes out a lot in the game. Pit stops can mean the winning or losing of the game. If they are all the same speed and time, Then it’s going to be a very boring sport. Plus, That’s a LOT of people losing their jobs there.
The article points out the dangers of pit stops, but I’ve seen nascar pit crew members get hit and they’re fine. I’d argue there is relatively low risk. Additionally, the Nascar style pit stop (ie: no automation) is much more interesting to watch and impacts the completion much more making it a team sport. I’d rather see a regression to nascar style.