DESERT X-PRIX
EXTREME E HAS returned for its sophomore season, racing once again in Saudi Arabia but this time at a new desert circuit near the ‘future city’ of Neom.
Nico Rosberg’s RXR team, inaugural Extreme E champion in 2021, got its defence off to a perfect start by winning the first X-prix of the year.
New recruit Mikaela Ahlinkottulinsky (who raced for Jenson Button’s JBXE squad last year) was running third in the final before Mclaren’s Tanner Foust smashed into the back of her Spark Odyssey. The American escaped from a big accident that ended his team’s rollercoaster Extreme E debut, with the race red-flagged.
At the restart, four-time World Rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson, in for Ahlin-kottulinsky in the stillintact RXR, quickly demoted Cristina Gutiérrez, driving again for Sir Lewis Hamilton’s X44 team, and then pulled a dramatic wide move on Carlos Sainz’s team-mate Laia Sanz at the penultimate corner to secure a hard-earned victory.