RACING LINES
Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Nico Rosberg and Carlos Sainz Sr headline as team owners. American motorsport powerhouses Chip Ganassi and Andretti have pitched in too. In the cockpits, the cream of talent from the rallycross world has risen to the top (as you would expect in an off-road division), while a generation of relatively unknown female racers are making the most of this new platform to establish themselves on a global stage. The venues are exotic and the 4x4s, if still troublingly far from bulletproof, have the power and speed to create a decent spectacle. Yes, there’s plenty to like about Extreme E.
And yet… As its third season began this month, among palm trees on the edge of a shimmering desert shoreline near Neom in Saudi Arabia, this electrically powered, short-format pioneer is still struggling to gain traction. Beyond those invested and involved, would anyone notice or care if at some point it quietly slips away?
IT’S ALL A CIRCUS
For a series made specifically for TV in the streaming age, it was odd how little promotion was given to the live Sunday afternoon coverage on ITV4. There was a new, streamlined race format that made sense, but what’s with the convoluted game show-style voting system for starting grids that involves drivers pouring sand into plastic beakers? No idea. It’s silly, too try-hard and asks an unnecessarily high degree of mental investment from an audience that just needs to ‘get it’ to keep tuning in.
This is a common trap these days for motorsport promoters, who too often chase desperate measures to be fresh and original. You would be forgiven for wondering whether they lack faith in their core sporting product, as if without the gimmicks it would all just fall flat.
Extreme E’s visionary founder, Alejandro Agag, also the driving force behind Formula E, makes no apology for his circus ringmaster approach to motorsport. “I really like people criticising me,” he told me in 2021 when we heralded his ‘disruptor’ influence by giving him our Motorsport Hero award.
Criticism is fuel to his ecologically friendly fire. How Extreme E exists at all is a marvel, especially as it was launched during the pandemic and is transported around the world by a diesel-engined ex-postal service ship (Agag calls on the old omelette and breaking eggs cliché to justify that one).
The legacy environmental programmes designed to leave each venue in a better state than when Extreme E found them is genuine in intention, while the gender equality angle is hitting its marks, as its t
