Audi champion Rinaldo Capello has officially retired 2 years ago on his top moment endurance prototype career, finishing second in his last Le Mans 24 Hours. He is now back not in professional racing but as testimonial for the Audi’s social Automated Driver campaign.
Capello started his racing career in 1976, driving go-karts, and he saw his second major championship victory, winning the Italian Superturismo event in a Audi 4
Although the Italian driver raced for several car teams, Audi was das team; winning plenty of competitions as a driver, he has been in the industry after his retirement and continues to test drive exclusive racing concept cars for the German manufacturer.
The Italian driver, now 52 years old ends his Le Mans Prototype career with a three Le Mans victories, five Sebring 12 Hours wins, 23 American Le Mans Series and 3 European Le Mans triumphs. The Italian was also ALMS champion twice.
At the German circuit Hockenheim, a special driverless car races on the track.Automated cars as a concept are not new, as it appears that the first autonomous concepts have been thought in 1920s. We have seen recently auto-parking featured automobiles and Audi seems to have made a point this time. Depending on sensors and software that it carries on board the new RS 7 is now racing against retired champion Rinaldi and his latest version of the Le Mans concept Audi.
Audi is working intensively to make auto-piloted driving a reality and it shows a full 15 years commitment across various track-tests and laboratory monitoring.
And this is why Audi is working to enable the vision of piloted driving to become reality. Assistance technology like active traction control and breaking, adaptive cruise control, active lane assist have proven a great level of success in industrial but how far we will need to go to gain a total confidence in letting these cars drive on public roads with multiple obstacles and hazards?
If you want to find out more follow Audi on this futuristic mission on the official Website, Facebook, Twitter, and You Tube channel.
This post has been sponsored by Audi but all thoughts are our own.
