A Super Formula Team Is Testing A New Heads-Up Visor Display

If you've seen Dragon Ball Z, you know about scouters. They're basically an eyepiece you can pop on that'll give you information without you having to look anywhere. Well, those might just become a thing in the future of racing.

According to Autosport, Super Formula team Dandelion Racing has debuted a heads-up display attached to a driver's helmet visor that doesn't look too different than the scouters. But instead of displaying an opponent's power levels, it shows things like fuel consumption and temperature.

This could potentially become a replacement for the more traditional display screens on the steering wheel. Those require drivers to look down—aka, out of their line of sight. Those millisecond distractions can get pretty serious if you're traveling over a hundred miles an hour in the thick of competition and you're trying to stick to a strategy.

The piece of technology has been developed by Japan display, a company co-owned by Sony. It's bolted to the driver's visor and has been designed specifically for a racing environment. It's supposed to be durable and, y'know, not distracting. It has a transmittance level of 80%, which basically means that 80% of light can penetrate the material. It's optimized for sun, rain, and everything outside and in between.

While it's still in its developmental stages, the heads up display is intended to be debuted on next's seasons SF19 car, which means they're obviously pretty far along in the process so far. It's an incredibly interesting idea, one that could easily find its way into the racing world as a way to make things incrementally safer and more competitive.