Mercedes announce exciting partnership which could revolutionise F1 Safety Car

Mercedes and Luminar extend their collaboration to Formula 1.
Mercedes and Luminar have extended their partnership to develop hazard detection software for the Mercedes Safety Car to improve safety in Formula 1. As the name suggests, the safety car plays an important role in protecting F1 drivers and staff from potentially dangerous situations on the track. Mercedes offers one of its second-hand models with the Mercedes-AMG GT Black Series.
Now, Mercedes and Luminar are working together to improve vehicle safety systems with innovative new hazard recognition methods. The Mercedes Safety Car is equipped with a 3D hazard map.

Subject to approval from Formula 1 and FIA governing bodies, Mercedes and Luminar plan to launch technology that will use LiDAR (light and detection range) and AI to enable 3D mapping of the safety car’s road environment. technology

The system can detect debris up to 250 meters and objects up to 500 meters, making it particularly useful in adverse weather conditions when road visibility is significantly reduced.

F1 calendar: when and where is the next F1 race? Commenting on the news, Mercedes F1 team principal Toto Wolff said: “We are delighted to begin our new partnership with Luminar.
“I’m very impressed with the journey so far, the technology and what they’ve done. This is a really exciting and innovative field with far-reaching implications for the automotive industry and mobility as a whole.
“Our collaboration builds on early development work between Luminar and Mercedes-Benz and we are excited to see how it develops. Luminar’s culture of innovation and entrepreneurship also fits incredibly well with our own ethos and values, so this is a natural collaboration.”

Markus Schäfer, Mercedes’ chief technology officer and non-executive F1 team chairman, said: “The partnership with our Formula 1 team is a natural extension of Mercedes-Benz existing partnership with Luminar to help realise our vision for accident-free driving in Mercedes production cars.
“Mercedes-Benz has always been at the forefront of innovation and safety and we look forward to continuing our development efforts with Luminar to bring this technology to our F1 team.”

Luminar founder and CEO Austin Russell added: “Luminar’s technology has always been about pushing the limits of performance while improving automotive safety – and with F1, Mercedes-AMG are taking it to the extreme on a world stage of automotive enthusiasts. “The same cutting-edge technologies we developed for our production cars in collaboration with Mercedes-Benz are shared with the Mercedes-AMG PETRONAS F1 Team, providing performance and safety benefits at all speeds, from city to highway to track. ..”

As well as safety, F1 will also focus on performance in 2024 as Mercedes aim to return to the title scene after a winless 2023 campaign.