Drone racing is a motorsport in which participants operate radio-controlled aircraft (typically small quadcopter drones) equipped with onboard digital video cameras. The operator views a compact flat panel display (typically mounted to the handheld controller) or, more often, wearing a head-mounted display (also called a "FPV goggle") that shows a live-streamed image feed from the aircraft. As with full-size air racing, the goal of the sport is to complete an obstacle course as quickly as possible. Drone racing began in 2011 in Germany with a number of amateur drone controllers getting together for semi-organized races in Karlsruhe.

FPV (first-person view) camera means pilots see only what the drone sees. This is accomplished by live streaming footage from a camera mounted on the drone's nose. The image is transmitted as analog video or digital video (typically 2.4 GHz or 5.8 GHz frequency, 1.3 GHz for distant transmission) to goggles or a monitor worn by the pilot. The remote control, drone, and goggles are all connected via radio and must transmit with sufficient speed and reliability to allow effective control.

FPV goggles on the market range from $40 to $800, with the more expensive goggles offering more and better features. Some of these features include receiver diversity, digital HD video, head tracking, multiple frequency settings, band settings, and DVR (digital video recorder) recording functionality. Digital video systems come at a higher cost than their analog counterparts. They generally offer much better image quality, lower latency in some systems, and are now becoming much more commonplace.

While the pilot always requires goggles, some drone racing organizations insist they should also be used by spectators, simply switching the frequency to the channel of the racer the spectator wants to watch. Any drone could be used to race; however, competitive FPV racing leagues require drones to meet certain standards. Such as video transmission power limits to ensure all competitors get stable signal and safety requirements like failsafe disarming (stopping all motors instantly when connection to the pilot is lost.

For competitions, aircraft are typically separated into classes, categorizing them by propeller or wheel base size and power. With small indoor ducted drones called Tiny Whoops creating their own sub category. MultiGP Drone Racing has created a full definition of Race Class Specifications for racing drones to make the competition fair.

The Drone Racing League (DRL) makes all of the drones used in its events in-house; pilots are supplied with drones, backup drones, and parts by the league itself, not independently. This means that you only need sufficient knowledge to professionally race.

Specification (spec) racing is when all competitors are required to fly equal performing drones. This is done by requiring outlined battery, ESC, motor, propeller and flight controller firmware. These races are designed to challenge the pilots based on skill alone, and drones are typically much slower than open class racing.

DR1 Racing utilizes an open-specification class format that relies on each team in the series to supply their own drones, goggles, and gear. Recently, they added the Pro-Class racing drone, which is currently the largest competitive drone racing format in the world.