Extreme E will be Formula E’s off-road cousin

There are two types of people in the world – those who mourn for ‘the good old days’ and those who embrace what they have.

Anyway, let’s not get too deep and meaningful here – especially as we’re only talking about a new motorsport series.

It’s an exciting one though. Extreme E is described as a ‘sport and entertainment concept’ that will see electric SUVs race across some of the most remote locations on earth in order to bring attention to both the prowess of electric cars and the effects of climate change at each venue.

Set to kick off in January 2021, the season will consist of five events and will travel to the Arctic, the Himalayas, the Sahara Desert, the Amazon rainforest and a selection of islands in the Indian Ocean.

Operated in association with Formula E (pictured above), the format will be a round-robin style with two groups of six teams, before the top-four progress to a knock-out stage and go head-to-head for a place in the final over 6-10km stages.  

The project though is being spearheaded by the men you see above, namely former racing driver and team manager Gil de Ferran, alongside Formula E boss Alejandro Agag. However, and this is where things get different, also on-board are explorer David de Rothschild and Academy Award winning film director Fisher Stevens.

Stevens, fresh off the back of making a Formula E documentary with Leonardo, will oversee the broadcasting of Extreme E via a ‘docu-sport’ TV series where each episode tells the story of a race as well as highlighting environmental issues in that area of the world. “Blue Planet meets Dakar” is how he describes it.

Also exciting is the paddock – not something we’d usually find ourselves saying. Extreme E’s paddock though will not only house the team garages, it will also be a mobile operational base for the whole series – transporting it across the globe. That’s because it’ll be based on the former Royal Mail ship St Helena, which is set to undergo a multi-million-pound green emission technologies renovation.

That’s pretty much all we know so far, with more information set to be announced in the near future. Interested?