(MENAFN- Khaleej Times)

It may have been an AI-driven racing car that crossed the finish line first at the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League (A2RL), but the human behind it - former Formula One driver Daniil Kvyat - still clocked the faster lap.

For the first few laps of Saturday's highly anticipated Human vs AI demonstration at Yas Marina Circuit, spectators watched in disbelief as the TUM autonomous racer held its lead.“We were ahead,” said Prof Markus Lienkamp, who leads the team.“He tried to close the gap. He was definitely faster in the beginning... but we are already on a similar level with a bit more than a second difference.”

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According to Lienkamp, the format was designed to showcase raw pace rather than to stage an overtaking battle.“It was a demonstration to show how fast autonomous cars can go in comparison to a real professional Formula One driver,” he explained. The human started 10 seconds behind the machine - a handicap meant to create a chase rather than a duel.

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By the final lap, the gap had shrunk to just 1.5 seconds.“If you see that in terms of qualification times in Formula One, you can qualify if you are seven per cent slower than the best driver,” Lienkamp said.“Seven per cent would mean four seconds - and we were just one and a half seconds slower... it would have been sufficient for a qualification time in Formula One.”

TUM won last year's autonomous race and came to Yas Marina determined to prove the gap between human and machine is narrowing.“We changed a lot in our code,” Lienkamp said of his team's 2025 preparations.“We made a new controller... and we put a lot of effort into overtaking.”

The car's performance impressed rival engineers too.“The human closed the gap and was faster, but the autonomous was very, very fast,” said Kohei Aoyama, technical manager of the Japanese TGM team.

Team members watched tensely from the pitlane, unmoving - by rule, no one is allowed to touch a keyboard or make adjustments once the autonomous car is released.“During the race, we were not allowed to do anything,” Lienkamp said.“No intervention, no touching of the keyboard... it was a five-year preparation time overall.”

The Human vs AI demonstration set the tone for the grand final that followed - and for the future of the sport. As TUM's chief engineer Nicola Palarchi said after the human vs AI demonstration:“We are closing the gap.”

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