Drones Keep a Watchful Eye Over COTA

This weekend at the gorgeous Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas, the ESM Patron Tequila Team brought with them a special piece of equipment. It’s not for their car, rather, it’s to capture the action from the sky.

ESM Racing is the only team to bring a done with them this weekend to capture the race at COTA. The image stabilized Go-Pro mounted drone captures some unique perspectives of the track and its Texas backdrop.

Drone motorsport videos have appeared in WRC and lesser rally series, but this is the first time this season in ALMS one has been seen flying over circuit capturing images of the ground beneath.

Helicopters are the go to machine to capture images and video from overhead but drones could soon fill that roll. They have to ability to fly close to the action and don’t create the air turbulence that a helicopter would at the same length. Hard to outright say that drones are the future of motorsport coverage, but what these machines bring to the event is extremely compelling, and this is a sport that that is always looking to innovate the way its consumed.

ESM is allowed to fly any place they wish as long as the track isn’t hot. In the future I wouldn’t be surprised to see tracks allow drones to cover every corner of any big race.