[JumpCrisscross]

> I would almost definitely struggle to get excited about it without the human element

You'd have teams in "pits" monitoring their vehicles live. Those reactions will be raw and humanistic.

When the vehicle comes in for a "pit stop," the team--in addition to doing mechanical maintenance--could be allowed to tweak the code, e.g. based on strategic observations of other cars' behaviours. To keep it interesting, one could mandate--to make up for the electronics in the car--all "pit stop" labor be completely manual. (Any code changes could be taken onto the track on an unpowered drive.)