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Bruno Senna becomes Airspeeder’s latest pilot, with first remotely piloted eVTOL racing series to be announced soon

Bruno Sen­na, the For­mu­la 1, For­mu­la E, FIA World Endurance Cham­pi­onship dri­ver and World eX race win­ner, has been con­firmed by Air­speed­er as a rac­ing devel­op­ment pilot and its glob­al ambas­sador. 

Sen­na is the nephew of the late three-time For­mu­la 1 world cham­pi­on Ayr­ton Sen­na and joins Air­speed­er on the cusp of the com­pa­ny announc­ing its first EXA remote­ly pilot­ed races. Sen­na will also race in forth­com­ing remote­ly pilot­ed EXA races and play a major role in the sport as it moves towards the first crewed Air­speed­er GPs in 2023.

As a devel­op­ment pilot, Sen­na will work with the company’s lead­ing team of engi­neers. They form Alau­da Aero­nau­tics — also cre­at­ed by Air­speed­er founder Matt Pear­son — the design­ers and man­u­fac­tur­ers of the Speed­ers that will take part in EXA and Air­speed­er rac­ing series. Their pedi­grees includes a mul­ti-F1 World Cham­pi­onship-win­ning Fer­rari com­pos­ites engi­neer and senior tal­ent from the devel­op­ment of hyper-cars at McLaren and senior Project Lead­ers from Air­bus, Boe­ing and Rolls-Royce.  

Pear­son said: “We are proud that Bruno Sen­na has cho­sen to join the Air­speed­er fam­i­ly as a rac­ing and devel­op­ment pilot. Through­out his career, he has demon­strat­ed his incred­i­ble prowess as a pure out-and-out rac­er. How­ev­er, Bruno is also a world-class devel­op­er of rac­ing vehi­cles who is fas­ci­nat­ed with advanc­ing cut­ting-edge tech­nolo­gies.

“His work com­pet­ing and improv­ing vehi­cles in F1, For­mu­la E, eSports and Drone Fly­ing equip him per­fect­ly to dri­ve the world’s most excit­ing and pro­gres­sive new form of motor­sport. Our forth­com­ing EXA races rep­re­sent the per­fect mar­riage of these sports and Bruno brings to Air­speed­er one of the most evoca­tive names in glob­al motor­sport and an unri­valled pedi­gree in tech­ni­cal­ly devel­op­ing a range of rac­ing vehi­cles by com­pet­ing at the absolute lim­it.”  

Through­out his career, Sen­na has oper­at­ed at the cut­ting-edge of motor­sport. He was an ear­ly entrant into For­mu­la E and has also pio­neered the growth of eSports by tran­si­tion­ing from For­mu­la 1 to a race win­ning seat in the Williams RCCO World eX Cham­pi­onship.

Sen­na will also draw upon a long-stand­ing per­son­al inter­est in UAV fly­ing and devel­op­ment. He per­son­al­ly works on mod­i­fi­ca­tions for drones and is fas­ci­nat­ed by the iter­a­tive tech­ni­cal improve­ments that can be made through mod­i­fi­ca­tions and upgrades. This com­bi­na­tion of world-class dri­ving tal­ent, eSports pedi­gree and a pas­sion for fly­ing makes him the blue­print devel­op­ment dri­ver for elec­tric fly­ing car rac­ing. 

Com­ment­ing on his new role at Air­speed­er, Sen­na said: “I could not resist the oppor­tu­ni­ty to approach Air­speed­er to be part of this incred­i­ble sport. In doing so I am proud to shape the world’s first rac­ing series for elec­tric fly­ing rac­ing cars. Air­speed­er com­bines my pas­sions for rac­ing, fly­ing and being part of the devel­op­ment of cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy. I can­not wait to take con­trol of these incred­i­ble vehi­cles and show the world the poten­tial of a true next gen­er­a­tion motor­sport.

“At my core I am a rac­er but I’m also a pas­sion­ate tech­nol­o­gist. I’ve been fas­ci­nat­ed about the world-chang­ing poten­tial of the rapid­ly com­ing advanced air mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion. As an Air­speed­er pilot, I’m enor­mous­ly excit­ed to shape the place and space for the indus­try to rapid­ly devel­op the hard­ware and dig­i­tal tech­nolo­gies that will deliv­er on the promise of elec­tric fly­ing cars.

“This is a role that motor­sport has played from the start of the auto­mo­bile age and I am proud to be echo­ing my rac­ing fore­bears in pio­neer­ing a mobil­i­ty rev­o­lu­tion in the fur­nace of sport­ing com­pe­ti­tion.”  

Even in ini­tial devel­op­ment meet­ings, Sen­na has already iden­ti­fied sig­nif­i­cant func­tion­al and tech­ni­cal advan­tages over tra­di­tion­al lega­cy motor­sports. For exam­ple, Sen­na is apply­ing the race-craft he has devel­oped over mul­ti­ple dis­ci­plines to inform strate­gic approach­es for pit-stops, which in the case of Air­speed­er will ini­tial­ly deliv­er rapid bat­tery swaps using a patent­ed ‘slide-and-lock’ sys­tem.

This insight is invalu­able as teams effec­tive­ly can build tac­ti­cal phi­los­o­phy from a blank sheet of paper, adding a high­ly com­pelling strate­gic lay­er to the sport. 

Togeth­er they will refine vehi­cles that have already proven their rac­ing cre­den­tials in final tests ahead of soon-to-be-announced first races. Sen­na joins a first intake of devel­op­ment pilots drawn from a diverse range of back­grounds. This includes Australia’s lead­ing female rac­ing dri­ver, a high­ly-rat­ed Drone Cham­pi­ons League (DCL) rac­er and one of the world’s lead­ing FPV pilots. 

The first rac­ers were select­ed from more than 1,500 indi­vid­u­als drawn from the world’s of civ­il and mil­i­tary avi­a­tion, FPV fly­ing, motor­sport and even eSports. Sen­na will play a lead­ing role in a rig­or­ous process of train­ing and devel­op­ment akin to that of an elite F1 or endurance rac­er. This will include bank­ing more than 2000 col­lec­tive hours on the Alau­da Aero­nau­tics 6‑DoF VR sim­u­la­tor. 

Sen­na added: “It’s fas­ci­nat­ing when you con­sid­er rac­ing with the added ver­ti­cal dimen­sion. As a dri­ver, I’m excit­ed to re-define rac­ing lines, over­tak­ing approach­es and pit strat­e­gy with­in this high­ly dynam­ic envi­ron­ment. We are even con­sid­er­ing how best to approach dif­fer­ent dynam­ic con­di­tions when fol­low­ing close­ly in prepa­ra­tion for an over­take.

“As Air­speed­er pilots we are not lim­it­ed by the same chal­lenges of ‘dirty air’ when fol­low­ing close­ly. This will make for close, com­pelling and ulti­mate­ly grip­ping rac­ing for fans, whether they are com­ing to motor­sport for the first time or are life-long fol­low­ers of car rac­ing.”

The EXA Rac­ing Series will see elite pilots fly full sized Mk3 Speed­ers blade-to-blade at speeds of up to 200km/h. This will become the long-term devel­op­ment series for forth­com­ing Air­speed­er crewed races. Sen­na and his pilot col­leagues will there­fore play a vital role in refin­ing the dynam­ic char­ac­ter­is­tics, con­trols and race-craft. 

The Speed­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in Air­speed­er races will boast the same rapid hair­pin-turn­ing capa­bil­i­ty as a For­mu­la 1 car. With the added dimen­sion of ver­ti­cal move­ment, pilots will even­tu­al­ly pull more than 6G. This is a fig­ure com­pa­ra­ble with the hard­est rigours of more tra­di­tion­al motor­sport. Senna’s expe­ri­ence will be invalu­able to prepar­ing EXA pilots for these con­di­tions as they grad­u­ate through to crewed rac­ing. 

Sen­na and his col­leagues will race across tracks pre­sent­ed to them util­is­ing aug­ment­ed real­i­ty tech­nol­o­gy pre­sent­ed to pilots on advanced Head Up Dis­plays (HUD). This will then be relayed to view­ers through a true pilot’s per­spec­tive. This is informed by Airspeeder’s phi­los­o­phy to race in line with the sen­si­bil­i­ties of an entire­ly new gen­er­a­tion of race-fans. In doing so, this will bring in fans more native to eSports and live-stream­ing than tra­di­tion­al lega­cy motor­sports. 

As a sport con­ceived for and in the era of glob­al stream­ing, sus­tain­abil­i­ty is ensured by not need­ing to build the nor­mal­ly high­ly impact­ful infra­struc­ture tra­di­tion­al rac­ing demands. This also means a glob­al audi­ence can enjoy and inter­act with races wher­ev­er they are in the world and at what­ev­er time they choose to engage with the sport. 

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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