Extreme E: breaking new ground
Hal Ridge looks ahead to a revolution for electric-powered motorsport which starts this weekend
Motor racing enters a new dimension this weekend as the Extreme E series gets underway in Saudi Arabi.
More than just a new championship created by Formula E founder Alejandro Agag, Extreme E’s philosophy is to use its all-electric concept to not only promote sustainability and electromobility, but to use motorsport to highlight global issues.
Nine single-car teams will take part in the full campaign, with squads owned and headed up by some A-list motorsport names, including Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Jenson Button, Chip Ganassi, Zak Brown, ABT and Carlos Sainz.
Each car will be driven for half of each two-lap race respectively by a male and female driver, including a driver change, while the tracks at the five rounds in Saudi Arabia (Desert X Prix), Senegal (Ocean X Prix), Greenland (Arctic X Prix), Brazil (Amazon X Prix) and Argentina (Glacier X Prix) will be laid for a race to last around 15 minutes, and be more cross-country rally-raid than World rally stage in terrain.
The remote locations for each round have been chosen as areas that have suffered as a result of climate change and human activity and the entire paddock, including the race cars, is being transported around the world by a converted Royal Mail ship called the St Helena.
The format for each race weekend will look familiar to rallycross fans, with Qualifying 1 and 2 on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday.
The second day’s action will include semi-final 1 (the top four cars from Saturday) and semi-final 2, also called the ‘the crazy race’, for the remaining five teams. The top three cars from semi 1, and the top two cars from semi 2 move forward to the final. Grid positions for the final will be allocated via a ‘Gridplay’ online voting system where fans vote for their favourite drivers.
While some teams will run aesthetically different bodywork, the rear-wheel-drive, 1650kg tubular-motor space-frame, 400kWproducing ODYSSEY 21 SUVs by French firm Spark Racing Technologies are otherwise identical. A ‘hyperdrive ’feature, giving a power boost for a fixed period of time, will be available to each driver on each lap of each race.