Opinion: Jack Clarke

Chief Innovation Officer for Veloce Racing and co-founder of Veloce Esports

“No motorsport discipline is more ground-breaking right now than Extreme E”

The past 18 months have been a whirlwind to say the least – and I’m not just talking about COVID! In the space of under a year and a half, we have gone from running an Esports operation to running an organisation with a stable of 10 Esports teams, 50-plus gamers and 35 digital media platforms, and launching a real-life racing team in the most exciting new series around.

I come from a racing family – my stepfather, Julian Bailey, is an ex-formula 1 and British Touring Car driver, and the rest of my family work in the sport. I spent nine years driving in multiple disciplines myself but, more recently, my focus has been on the business side and on co-driving Veloce to where it is today.

Veloce Esports was founded at the start of 2018 by me and my business partners Rupert Svendsen-cook and Jamie Maclaurin, and we’ve built it up into what’s now one of the leading organisations in the Esports industry. Subsequently, my brother Daniel Bailey joined the management after the full integration of our race outfit, Veloce Racing. It’s a great team and I’m incredibly proud to be surrounded by such large brains!

Last year, our‘not the Gp’series was launched to fill the racing void created by COVID-19, and it was the catalyst for a huge step forward for us. The series attracted the likes of Lando Norris, Charles Leclerc and even leading stars from other sports such as Real Madrid goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and golfer Ian Poulter. It also yielded record-breaking viewing figures, along with a giant leap in viewership across our digital outlets, peaking at 190million in December. Last year was one of many challenges, but for the business it simultaneously presented a raft of opportunities to really underpin our Esports vision.

We subsequently collaborated with Lando on the introduction of his Quadrant squad and ran Jarno Opmeer to the F1 Esports World Championship crown with Alfa Romeo Racing Orlen F1 Esports, and we are part of some tremendously exciting projects with both Mclaren and our Yas Marina-based partner team, Yas Heat. We always wanted to carry that growing momentum into innovative spaces, and Extreme E had us inspired from the second we heard about it. As an organisation, Veloce prides itself on its disruptive, cutting-edge approach, and no motorsport discipline is more forward-thinking and ground-breaking right now than Extreme E – it’s a championship that has purpose at its very core.

Motor racing was built upon the technical advancement of the automotive industry, and now is not the time to stop evolving; quite the opposite, it’s time to double-down! We are facing a climate emergency. Sport has a role to play, and none more so than motorsport. Extreme E provides the ultimate platform to shine a spotlight on climate issues and inspire the spirit of taking action.

Having attended the series’test and preparation events, it blew me away. I am, of course, romantic about the noises and smells of the combustion era, as I’m sure Chip Ganassi and Lewis Hamilton are, but this is a new landscape with some very special features. Ultimately, motorsport is a business that needs a deep connection not only to the automotive industry but to our evolving world.

To underline our commitment to doing the business both on and off-track, we’ve established what we believe is a strong, diverse and highly skilled leadership team. Racing brains don’t come much more finely tuned than that of Adrian Newey, who is our Lead Visionary and whose knowledge and expertise speaks for itself, while Jean-eric Vergne is a co-founder of Veloce and a staunch advocate of all things innovative. As a two-time Formula E champion and a stalwart of the series from its first season, few people are closer to Alejandro Agag than Jean-eric, and he is confident that Extreme E will go on to achieve similar if not even greater levels of success. He is a key driving force behind the scenes at Veloce Racing and, like Adrian, brings a wealth of experience.

Talking of experience, our team manager Ian Davies is one of the true‘off-roadies’-at Veloce, having played a major role in world championship-winning teams in rallying and rallycross. Combining his expertise with the partnership we’ve established with one of the sport’s leading teams – ART Grand Prix – we feel we’ve coordinated an exceptional group of people and organisations.

As to our drivers, Stephane Sarrazin is one of motorsport’s true all-rounders. Whatever he climbs into – from sportscars to singleseaters to rally cars or touring cars – he is immediately fast, and

I’m confident that his versatile skillset will help him to quickly get a handle on the ODYSSEY 21. Jamie Chadwick, meanwhile, is the most exciting up-and-coming female racer around. She demonstrated her class by winning the W Series in 2019 and

I have no doubt that she will similarly be on the pace.

There are clearly some big names in many of the other teams too, world champions everywhere you look. The guys at Extreme E have assembled a formidable line-up for the inaugural campaign, and we can’t wait to see how we measure up. The calibre of competition is going to be just insane but, while we are something of a newcomer, we are far from wet behind the ears.

It’s been a herculean task to pull Veloce Racing together over the past 18 months, and I could not be prouder of the effort made by everybody involved in this massively exciting project. The startline in Saudi Arabia is now almost in sight, with our ODYSSEY 21 onboard the St Helena, which recently set sail for round one of season one. When the ship docks for the Desert X Prix in just a few weeks ’time, I can assure you we will be ready to go.