How They Make the Mario Kart-Style 'Ghost Car' for Auto Racing Broadcasts

“GPS is bully successful places, but we spell to places similar Monaco, Baku, Singapore, wherever each that infrastructure and buildings truly marque GPS drift,” says Dean Locke, manager of broadcast media and integer for Formula 1.

F1 cars are besides overmuch lighter than their Nascar counterparts, necessitating lower-weight sensors. Its broadcast teams struggled to enactment unneurotic afloat laps of shade car oregon related overlay features arsenic a result.

To get astir these limitations, F1 built respective interior prediction models based connected past seasons’ GPS information and lidar scans of each track. It past integrated those models into an in-house exertion that overlayed a synchronized video provender of those aforesaid past qualifying trials, past compared the 2 information inputs broadside by side. By archetypal manually identifying discrepancies wherever GPS information from qualifying intelligibly was retired of whack based connected video footage, the squad was capable to bid its models to spot anomalies and close them.

F1’s ain shade car diagnostic launched crossed its broadcasters for the 2025 season. It features some an in-car operator presumption and a “helicopter” presumption supra the car—especially adjuvant for qualifying laps wherever the existent operator is up of the shade car, since the shade car would beryllium invisible during in-car views successful these situations.

A drawback, though: F1 can’t yet amusement its shade car connected unrecorded broadcasts. Because the team’s process inactive requires that last spot of manual fine-tuning to guarantee the translucent shade car is positioned accuracy, Locke says it takes astir 90 minutes to walk the shade car overlay to broadcast partners aft each qualifying run. The team’s extremity is simply a 30-minute turnaround to facilitate quicker post-qualifying analysis. Still, Locke says, shade car broadcasts person been immensely fashionable connected F1’s societal channels.

F1’s single-car competitors astatine IndyCar, meanwhile, person pushed the envelope further this play arsenic Fox, the location of Nascar, has taken implicit from NBC arsenic the IndyCar series’ broadcaster, bringing SMT’s vector container exertion with it. Starting with Indy 500 qualifying earlier successful May, a afloat unrecorded shade car animation has been utilized arsenic a superimposed overlay for Fox’s in-car operator camera. This isn’t a 3D rendering, similar SMT’s anterior Nascar shade cars, which swap into a abstracted integer presumption (either the afloat surface oregon smaller container format); it’s the actual, real-life operator camera from the broadcast with a centimeter-accurate shade car overlayed onto the screen.

Laps of Judgment

Ghost cars are inactive successful their comparative infancy, particularly for genuinely unrecorded broadcasts. Hall sees the uses of this underlying exertion rapidly expanding arsenic broadcasters go much acquainted with them—including for full-field races successful summation to qualifiers.

“Maybe you privation to comparison tyre wear,” Hall posits. “Let maine amusement you this car present moving live, and fto maine amusement you this car 5 laps agone wherever it was moving connected antithetic tires.”

Hall besides suggests the thought of aggregate shade cars for qualifying; 1 for the rod sitter, but possibly others for bubble positions oregon different applicable spots.

It's casual to spot however the shade cars zipping astir connected your TV could conscionable beryllium the opening of the mode this ultra-specific car information volition beryllium used. Just look astatine Nascar; SMT received involvement from aggregate teams wrong little than a twelvemonth of pioneering its vector box. The teams wanted to usage information from the container for tactical purposes similar postrace investigation oregon comparisons to competitors, and SMT developed a Team Analytics application.

Demand was truthful precocious that successful 2018, Nascar opened this information up to let each teams afloat access. They tin presumption everything from car positioning to cogwheel and throttle data, not conscionable for their ain drivers but for the full field. Team Analytics has a diagnostic that allows aggregate shade car overlays of anterior races, allowing crews to comparison driving lines oregon crook speeds.

“Now astatine each pit stall, it is the halfway application,” Hall says. “Because the teams, the unit chiefs, they privation to know: How is my car doing comparative to different cars? And due to the fact that it’s not conscionable positioning connected the track, it’s besides gears, throttle, et cetera, antithetic drivers tin comparison their show against” each other.

It's apt lone a substance of clip earlier these features trickle into IndyCar and F1 teams.

Locke says those teams “will usage perfectly thing they tin to get an betterment implicit different team,” though helium notes that F1 teams already cod a wealthiness of interior information connected their vehicles.

Who’d person thought a funky Mario Kart diagnostic utilized for bragging rights among friends could person specified an power successful the world’s highest-stakes car races?