Yamaha’s Motobot takes on Rossi

It looks like the robots aren’t ready to take over just yet. At least not while Valentino Rossi’s around.

Yamaha’s motorbike-riding robot, called Motobot, took on Rossi at Thunderhill Raceway Park, California, and finished more than 30 seconds behind the nine-time GP world champion.

Motobot’s lap time was 115.5 seconds, while Rossi managed 85.74 seconds on a similar R1M.

Motobot has been in development for three years – with the odd crash along the way, the video shows.

While it clearly still has a long way to go before achieving its goal to “surpass” Rossi, the technology is likely to be used to improve rider aids for humans, such traction as control.