Formula E chief executive Alejandro Agag has brought plenty of novelty to the world’s first all-electric motor racing series and now he is wondering about unleashing fake dogs as a hazard for driverless cars.
If that idea sounds virtually barking, the 46-year-old Spaniard appears to be serious.
Speaking ahead of races in New York this weekend, Agag ran the rule over some of his championship’s technological innovations — from “fanboost” to digital dimensions and driverless racing cars — and ventured one step beyond.
Photo: AFP
Part of the program envisages futuristic-looking “Roborace” cars doing demonstration laps around the Brooklyn street circuit.
Formula E organizers hope ultimately to have up to 10 of the cars racing together, run by teams who write their own software, around city tracks as a support event to their series.
However, they are not there yet and the format of any such race has yet to be decided.
One problem is that all are likely to be programmed to take the perfect line around the track and might not be able to overtake.
However, Agag’s view is that the driverless technology is less about motorsport than safety and that maybe highlighting the latter is the best way forward.
“Maybe the way to do it is to have [the cars lap] one by one and see which one is safer,” he told reporters. “So you throw in a fake dog for example, a fake obstacle, and see how the car reacts to that.”
“The fake dog has to be fake,” he added firmly.
Such thinking is typical of Formula E, a series that appeals as much if not more to geeks and gamers than old-style petrolheads.
While Formula One talks about entering a digital era, with an expansion of social media and putting content onto previously neglected platforms under new owners Liberty Media, Formula E has enjoyed a head start.
“The digital world is so wide that you can do a million things and you don’t collide with someone else doing another million things,” Agag said. “We keep having new ideas that nobody has done and maybe they [Formula One management] are having some ideas that nobody has done. They have started a little bit late, but we can see the new team is really pushing on that and doing some interesting things, but we started much earlier.”
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB