Real life racing is about being perfect. Every second you lose is a second you can't get back. It's not about being fast but about not being slow.
For a racing game to be engaging the A.I. can't really be trying to beat you, otherwise you'd be going through laps you couldn't win and it wouldn't feel meaningful.
There is a portion of the article and video discussing the work they did after it was too much of a jerk in order to make it drive with sportsmanship. It's very high level so there are frustratingly few details.
In the video the developers make it very clear that the goal is to make an agent that is a fun challenge.
This reminds me of a racing game series I used to play when I was younger called TrackMania. The racing gameplay dynamic was simply about getting the best time. Getting gold medals on all of the single player tracks is just the beginning. Once you start heading online and looking at the leaderboards you realize just how competitive the scene is in this series of games. This video[1] for example documents some of the crazy lengths that the most competitive players will go to get to the top of the ranks.
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[ 6.3 ms ] story [ 26.8 ms ] threadThe Making of Gran Turismo Sophy [English] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l948hMaTPuo
Real life racing is about being perfect. Every second you lose is a second you can't get back. It's not about being fast but about not being slow.
For a racing game to be engaging the A.I. can't really be trying to beat you, otherwise you'd be going through laps you couldn't win and it wouldn't feel meaningful.
In the video the developers make it very clear that the goal is to make an agent that is a fun challenge.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODo_obCblXo
There's RoboRace: https://roborace.com
I don't know much about what they are doing now but in 2020 they got some coverage for an issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4fdUx6d4QM
And there is the Indy Autonomous Challenge that ran a head to head race at CES this year: https://www.indyautonomouschallenge.com/autonomous-challenge...