The Titan Grand Prix GFD1 drone faced off against a Formula E car at the Brooklyn Cruise Terminal in New York on Sunday. The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was piloted by drone operators Zachry Thayer and Jordan Temkin, with confidence at an all-time high. However, though the GFD1 drone left the competing Formula E car in the dust, it crashed onto the tarmac just after completing the first of three rounds. For us drone enthusiasts, though, that’s still quite a victory!
The confidence on behalf of the drone team beforehand made sense. After all, only last week did drones set a new Guinness World Record for fastest ground speed by a battery-powered remote-controlled quadcopter, reaching speeds of up to 179.6 miles per hour. The Titan Grand Prix team was more assured and confident than ever before that it would beat the Formula E car in this best-out-of-three competition. And for an entire lap, the GFD1 was leading, and immediately attained a vast head-start over the Formula E race car. Suddenly, after one lap, an unintended barrel-roll caused the drone to crash onto the tarmac.
The team even issued this playful (if a little too cocky) statement beforehand saying that “We are so happy to be working with FDR on this. The NYC ePrix is the perfect venue for introducing TGP and the GFD1 to the world. We have enormous respect for the Formula E organization. It’s almost a shame the GFD1 will crush this race so hard.” Well, turns out they were right! They did beat the race car. It’s just a shame that it had to end so violently. Have a look at the drone crash above. The harsh thump onto concrete occurs about 15 seconds into the video.
According to a statement by the Titan Grand Prix team, they had a backup drone ready to go, in order to complete the second two rounds, but the FDR decided against this. TGP has the official story on their site, in case you’re curious of the more intricate details. It’s a shame that the drone had to splinter into pieces, but it’s also pretty beautiful that we just witnessed one of our beloved UAVs beat a literal race car. These drones are going places.