Switzerland’s Sebastien Buemi on Saturday became the first driver to win three Formula E races in a row, while fans also witnessed another milestone with a “race” between two driverless cars on the streets of Buenos Aires.
Buemi, the reigning champion and a former Formula One driver, has now won all three races this season for the Renault e.dams team, with Buenos Aires following wins in Hong Kong and Morocco.
He leads the standings, 29 points ahead of Brazilian Lucas Di Grassi, with the next race in Mexico City on April 1.
Renault e.dams have now won half of all Formula E races that have taken place.
Frenchman Jean-Eric Vergne was second in Saturday’s race for the Chinese Techeetah team, with Di Grassi, who started on pole position, third for Team Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport.
Buenos Aires also saw the first demonstration run of two driverless Roborace development electric cars running on the track together at speeds of up to 185kph, but mostly slower.
The cars used sensors and onboard systems to navigate the street circuit while communicating with each other to avoid contact, but one of the two still crashed into barriers.
“This is an historic moment for Roborace and for the future of autonomous vehicle development,” Roborace chief executive Denis Sverdlov said in a statement. “Seeing these two cars interacting at speed on a race track shows how fast the technology is progressing and how important a platform Roborace is for further development.”
Formula E organizers ultimately hope to have up to 10 driverless cars racing together, run by teams who write their own software, around city tracks as a support event to their series.
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