Roborace car DevBot 2.0 laid down a record time for an autonomous vehicle as it took on the course in West Sussex.

Hurtling around the track with no-one in the cockpit, crowds were stunned as it clocked a time of just 66.96 seconds. 

Tech firm Roborace has previously taken an autonomous car to Goodwood last year but no official time was taken.

Formula 1 and Formula E racer Lucas Di Grassi is the CEO of the company which has ambitions to make autonomous cars faster than any driver.

He boasted last year they are just 6% slower than human drivers and getting faster all the time.

“We started the year 20% slower and we are now 6% slower”

Lucas Di Grassi

Di Grassi drove the car manually to start line in front of expectant crowds of petrolheads. 

He then clambered out and left the car on the start line of the hill climb.

DevBot 2.0 then roared into life and went hurtling up the course, which over the festival is also taken on by the world’s best drivers.

Roborace even removed the doors from the car at one point to show off the eerily human-less space in the cockpit. 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/fmbLM_UqbJM

Bryn Balcombe, Roborace’s Chief Strategy Officer, said: “The team are thrilled to have set the first ever official time for an autonomous vehicle at the Goodwood Festival of Speed hillclimb.”

DevBot 2.0 drives itself using a combination of GPS and LiDAR. 

It completed the hillclimb without incident and at respectable pace. 

Video shows the car weaving its way around the narrow circuit between bales of hay – setting the historic record at Goodwood.

Di Grassi is confident that his autonomous cars will one day surpass the likes of Lewis Hamilton and Max Verstappen. 

Last year, he said: “We’re going to call it a singularity event when an autonomous racing car is faster than any racing driver.

“We started the year 20% slower and we are now 6% slower.”

“We think when the car reaches a level that is better than any human this will create a layer of trust on the roads.”

Di Grassi hopes his autonomous speedsters will act as a testbed for the future of driverless cars. 

He hopes one day to have his cars race alongside humans in the likes of Formula 1 and Formula E. 

And with plenty of driverless firms competing, he is confident the technology will develop exponentially in a new tech arms race.

The 34-year-old won the Formula E championship in 2017 and spent one season in F1 with Virgin Racing in 2010.

The race ace confessed however he “doesn’t know” if there will ever be an audience for motor races totally removed from human drivers. 

Dan Garlick, general manager of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, said: “This year’s festival truly shook up the established order, and Roborace produced a really significant performance.

“We saw the DevBot 2.0 raise the bar for what autonomous vehicles can achieve. 

“Roborace has brought a whole new story to the sport that has really struck a chord with the crowd.”

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