An autonomous IndyCar will run up the hill at Goodwood in 2024

If you live on our side of the pond, you may not be aware of the Indy Autonomous Challenge. Essentially, it’s a competition for universities across the world to create automated vehicle software, which is then put to the test in driverless head-to-head overtake battles.

Nine teams currently compete using the Dallara AV-21, which is referred to as ‘the world’s fastest autonomous racecar’ after the PoliMOVE team from Politecnico di Milano in Italy set a record maximum speed of 180mph in January 2023. The cockpits are stuffed full of computers, while lidar, radar and optical camera sensors act as the Indy’s eyes. 

That’s the basics anyway, but the real news here is that the IAC is planning a ‘competitive run’ up the hill at Goodwood in 2024. As you can see from the image above, the AV-21 demonstrator was at the Festival of Speed last week in the Future Lab, but we’re told that it also mapped the Duke’s driveway out of hours to enable a proper run next year. 

How quickly do we reckon a driverless IndyCar could complete the course, folks?