This weekend, driverless race cars will take to one of motorsport’s most historic circuits as the Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League stages its first multi-car race outside Yas Marina Circuit.
The race takes place on Saturday, September 5, beginning at 6.30pm in Italy – 8.30pm in the UAE. Five teams – Tum, Kinetiz, Unimore, Constructor and Polimove – will compete using identical cars based on the Dallara Super Formula SF23.
Stephane Timpano, chief executive of Aspire, the organisation behind A2RL, says taking autonomous racing to Imola brings together the history of the sport with technology designed to shape its future.
“Being in Imola is a huge pleasure for us,” he tells The National.
“It’s also a big responsibility because we are at one of the most historic circuits in the world, and we are bringing modernity and the future to one of the most iconic places in the history of racing and Formula One. So the bar is very high.”
Its elevation changes, narrow racing lines, limited run-off areas and difficult overtaking zones will test how the autonomous systems respond to traffic and make decisions at racing speed on an unfamiliar circuit.
A2RL has spent its first two years developing its autonomous racing technology in Abu Dhabi, but Timpano sees international expansion as integral to the technology's future.
“We’ve been preparing a lot to be here, leveraging all the experience we have developed in Abu Dhabi with the teams that are coming with us,” he says.
“The plan has always been to go abroad and bring the concept outside the boundaries of the UAE.”
Following Imola, the league will return to Yas Marina Circuit for its 2026 season finale.
Imola also comes as A2RL begins to look beyond proving that an AI-controlled racing car is viable. The league progressed from a four-car final in 2024 to six cars racing wheel to wheel at more than 250kph in 2025.
Over the same period, the gap between its fastest autonomous system and a professional driver narrowed from 10 seconds to 1.58 seconds.
“We are progressively moving from a technology demonstration, showing that the technology can work and bringing the best experts in the world to Abu Dhabi, towards seeing the potential for a new kind of racing format,” Timpano says.
“More and more of this technology could be used in traditional racing to improve the performance and safety of the cars and drivers.”
One area being explored is tyre management, where autonomous cars can provide engineers with more consistent driving inputs when studying tyre degradation and performance.
Timpano believes such experience could eventually prove useful elsewhere in motorsport.
“I think the moment is coming when all the technology and experience we have developed in this kind of competition can be useful for Formula One and other types of racing,” he says.
For all the attention around artificial intelligence, Timpano does not see A2RL as an attempt to replace racing drivers.
“You don’t want to replace the driver with AI, but you want to bring the benefits of these kinds of solutions to support the driver and provide a safer and faster way of driving,” he says.
“I don’t believe there is a replacement story. I think the driver is important. It excites people. But this technology gives a huge benefit in terms of performance.”
He expects machines and people to increasingly operate alongside one another, including potentially in sport.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if you see a lot of sports in which you have mixed teams, where some kind of agentic, robotic or humanoid participants join human teams and compete,” he says.
New racing formats could emerge too. Timpano raises the possibility of a driver remotely controlling a full-sized race car from a simulator, although he says latency remains an obstacle.
“You remove the fear and you remove the risk of killing or injuring someone,” he says. “You could really say, ‘Now it’s entirely about speed.’”
Behind those future possibilities are engineers dealing with the immediate task of making autonomous cars faster, safer and more reliable.
Although the cars race without anyone behind the wheel, people must still prepare and maintain them, inspect their components and respond to problems between runs.
Among them is Emirati race engineer Amna Almarzooqi, 24, who came to autonomous racing from aviation.
Almarzooqi studied aviation maintenance engineering at the Higher Colleges of Technology in Abu Dhabi and completed internships with Abu Dhabi Police Aviation and Etihad Airways before joining A2RL in her first full-time job.
She says the move from aircraft to race cars was less dramatic than it might appear.
“When I came here, I brought with me the experience I had gained from having to be very precise,” she says.
“In aviation, we have manuals that we have to follow when doing something, so bringing that experience here was very helpful.”
The same focus on safety and technical discipline also translates into other areas.
“With aeroplanes, everything needs to be secure and safe,” she says. “Having those skills was already an advantage when it came to working on these cars, because these cars also need to be secure. They are travelling very fast.”
Almarzooqi, who is the only Emirati in her team, says A2RL has also helped her identify the kind of work she wants to pursue.
“After moving from aviation into cars, I realised that I want to work in a technical environment and on projects that are continuously developing, particularly projects that support technology and advanced technology in general,” she says.
She also points to investment in education and young people in the UAE as helping engineers move into emerging fields.
“The UAE is investing in making educational institutions advanced and developed so that we can keep up with the updates happening around the world,” she says.
“It is also giving us opportunities to work on new and highly advanced projects.”
Her advice to students hoping to follow a similar path is simple.
“Don’t say no. Take every opportunity you get, whether it was what you planned for or not,” she says.
“Build a technical background if you’re interested in engineering or STEM in general.
“And don’t be scared. Don’t wait. Just do it.”
