Motorsport TechnologyThe Acronis SIT Autonomous Roborace team took a vicelike grip on the Season Beta: Mission 3.1 championship after blitzing the competition in Rounds 7&8 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Having also swept rounds 6&7, the Swiss based team from Schaffhausen Institute of Technology was already brimming with confidence and clearly the team to beat. And after Arrival Racing recorded a DNF in round 7, Acronis SIT Autonomous found themselves needing to beat an overall result time of 7m26.040s, set by Autonomous Racing Graz.
Not a problem for the Schaffhausen team, their branded Devbot eating up the circuit, collecting 52 virtual bonus objects whilst hitting no virtual obstacles and lapping the circuit with a top speed of 150kph for a result time of 5m14.540s. Putting that into context, Graz only collected 22 virtual objects, hitting two obstacles and topping out at 143kph.
🇨🇭 Acronis SIT Autonomous won in Round 7 with 0 hits and lots of loot.
🇦🇹 Autonomous Racing Graz were 2nd fastest.
🇺🇸 MIT Driverless became 3rd fastest.
🇮🇹 PoliMOVE demonstrated great performance in their first official run with collectables and obstacles consideration.
— Roborace (@roborace) March 31, 2021
It was something of a déjà vu for Arrival Racing going into Round 8, their aggressive strategy of opting for out and out pace again backfiring as their Devbot left the circuit and recorded another DNF, a disaster for the Anglo-Russian team who were pre-season favourites for many.
🇬🇧🇷🇺 Arrival Racing is off the track!https://t.co/swv1ni1AhD
— Roborace (@roborace) April 1, 2021
Again running last, Acronis SIT Autonomous had a different challenger in the form of MIT Driverless, the Massachusetts team collecting 37 objects and hitting two obstacles in setting a benchmark of 7m41.100s. It looked a competitive target, but nothing was stopping Acronis SIT Autonomous, another clear round of no obstacles hit with 38 objects collected at a top speed of 151kph meaning it was yet another maximum of 800 points in the bag.
The upshot of it all means that the all-conquering Acronis SIT Autonomous team now won five out of the eight rounds and leads the standings from Arrival Racing by 900 points.
— Roborace (@roborace) April 1, 2021
“I am feeling completely satisfied,” commented Ilya Shimchik, team lead of SIT Autonomous. “It’s a pleasure to be here and to show good results and be happy we have this opportunity to take the first place here. “We were not so fast as yesterday but with the configuration of the track and configuration of obstacles it was quite different, maybe not very good to compare yesterday’s results with today’s results. Collectables different, obstacles different so not an apples-to-apples comparison.
“Of course we are looking for how other teams are performing because we went last this round and of course we would have liked to see Arrival Racing to finish their time and show their time because we would like to compare our result and maybe Arrival can show a good performance next time.”
Round 8 results 😎 pic.twitter.com/4ZiuyFlLof
— Roborace (@roborace) April 1, 2021
🏆 Championship Leaderboard after Mission 3.1.
Thank you all for being with us during all the challenges and fun 🙏
We'll meet you in April for Mission 4. More cool live casts will follow 🤟 pic.twitter.com/W6P9W4LRLn
— Roborace (@roborace) April 1, 2021
Fraser Masefield
