How AI is boosting gender equality in high-performance racing

Formula E and Google Cloud are developing an AI-based Driver Agent to provide racers with the real-time performance feedback and personalized coaching support that was once the sole domain of top tier professionals.

A historic dearth of data and ensuing under-investment in female-specific training and support is holding too many women athletes back.

There are many reasons for this lack of information. This includes women's late access to professional competitions, cultural bias, and lower levels of sponsorship.

But the situation is putting female sportspeople at a significant disadvantage. This is true even in a sport like Formula 1 (F1) racing, which is one of the few in which both genders can compete on an equal physical footing.

More than Equal's Inside Track study, the biggest ever conducted into women's participation in motorsport, revealed that less than 10% of the entire industry are female. In addition, only five women have ever competed in high-profile F1 World Championship Grand Prix events, and none have ever won.

But with the smart use of data, analytics and AI, this situation could be about to change. A collaboration between Formula E, the premier all-electric racing series, and Google Cloud, its Official Cloud Technology Services Partner, is showing what's possible.

They are jointly developing a generative AI-based Driver Agent to level the playing field for emerging talent worldwide, no matter what their gender, background, team size or resources. The aim is to bridge the gap between top-end drivers who have access to sophisticated performance analytics tools and lower-level players who do not.

Leveling the playing field

The Driver Agent is powered by Google Cloud's Vertex AI development and runtime platform and Gemini large language model. It offers drivers both real-time performance feedback and personalised coaching support either via text or audio.

This enables them to make immediate adjustments, refine their skills, and optimize their performance. In the past, such insights were only provided to top-tier drivers by their engineering teams.

But a key aim with Driver Agent is to democratise access to such insights, and not just among Formula E drivers but for other professionals in the motorsport community too. The idea is to build a future where racing talent is determined by skill rather than the resources available, enabling a more diverse pool of talent, particularly women, to rise to the top.

The Driver Agent is already having an impact too. In the second of the 'Women's Test' Formula E World Championship's pre-season testing schedule in November last year, American Chloe Chambers set the best time.

Driving the latest GEN3 Evo vehicle at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, Spain, Chambers' lap time was only four tenths of a second behind the best time set by Sweden's Joel Eriksson. He has 10 Formula E starts under his belt, which clearly demonstrates that if effective support is available, skill will always win out.

Sponsored by Google Cloud.