- McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and his team are joining Extreme E for the 2022 season
- Two-time Formula Drift champion Tanner Foust, only the third American to compete in Extreme E, and Emma Gilmour, the only woman to win a New Zealand Rally Championship event will drive for the McLaren entry.
- Extreme E is the only major motor racing series in the world that mandates both a male and female driver for every team.
- The Season 2 calendar opens with the first of five races in the 2022 Extreme E series on Feb. 19-20 at Neom, Saudi Arabia.
Praising the series for “paving new ground in motorsport as a force for good in confronting some of the biggest challenges facing our world today and in the future,” McLaren Racing CEO Zak Brown and his team are joining Extreme E for the 2022 season.
World Rallycross ace and two-time Formula Drift champion Tanner Foust—only the third American to compete in Extreme E (Kyle LeDuc and Sara Price are the others)—and Emma Gilmour, the only woman to win a New Zealand Rally Championship event, will be McLaren’s two drivers in the unique racing series. It's a series that features all-electric, purpose-built race cars that embrace the worldwide mission to repair damaged ecosystems while showing off EV capability in diverse and rugged environments.
Foust was on board since last August. Gilmour signed on as McLaren’s first woman driver during last November’s COP26 U.N. Climate Change Conference at Glasgow, Scotland.
Foust is a four-time and current U.S. Rallycross champion (2019, 2012, 2011, 2010) and has won four X Games gold medals (2013, 2010, 2007) and two Formula Drift titles (2008, 2007). Gilmour, of New Zealand, won the FIA Women in Motorsport and Qatar Motor and Motorcycle Federation (QMMF) cross-country rally selection in 2015. She raced for Veloce Racing in two rounds of Extreme E last season.
As well as returning to Saudi Arabia, Italy, and possibly Senegal, Extreme E will make its debut in South America with its final two X Prix of the campaign set for Antofagasta, Chile, and Punta del Este, Uruguay. Inaugural-season X Prix in Brazil and Argentina were canceled because of pandemic concerns.
The Season 2 calendar opens with the first of five races Feb. 19-20 at Neom, Saudi Arabia. Extreme E will return to Sardinia, Italy, May 7-8. Round 3, July 9-10, is still pending between a new venue in Scotland or a revisit to Senegal, on Africa’s west coast. The St. Helena—the refitted British mail ship that transports the cars, equipment, research scientists, officials, and racers to events to reduce the sport’s carbon footprint—will carry the operation to Chile (September 10-11) and to Uruguay on the opposite coast of South America (November 26-27) to close the season.
Alejandro Agag, CEO and founder of Extreme E, said, “As we embark on the second chapter of our story, we are proud to finally welcome Zak Brown and his McLaren team to the party and know they will make a huge impact, which we are all excited to see. We also add a new continent to our journey as we take our voyage to South America, a hugely important home, both for motorsport fans and the climate.
“In all this, however, we cannot lose sight of our overall purpose, that we are all together in a race for the planet,” he said. “We feel more passionately than ever about the importance of using the platform of sport to raise awareness for climate issues. This is the race we can, and must, win, and we all need to play our part.”
Brown is ready to orchestrate his team’s part. He said, “From the outset, McLaren Racing has never been afraid to push new boundaries. This new venture is true to our roots of innovation and bravery.”
Brown said the media-savvy and versatile racer and stunt driver Foust “is a top-class off-road competitor with a wealth of experience and a winning record. Alongside his driving prowess, he’s a fantastic personality, who will help us connect with new fans around the world and bring the purpose and important messages of Extreme E to the fore.”
Foust not only said he’s thrilled to join McLaren (“To be able to race for McLaren is every driver’s dream”), but he also said, “The opportunity to compete for the team in this innovative and imaginative racing series makes it even more special. The concept is unique and the challenge compelling. It will enable me to draw on all my experience and skills while being part of a positive cause addressing key issues for our planet and society.”
McLaren has been a leader in electric motorsport from the outset, supplying the battery powertrain to the FIA Formula E Championship for the Gen 1 and Gen 2 seasons, employing the same technology pioneered in the McLaren P1 hypercar. With its entry into Extreme E, McLaren Racing will continue to build its expertise in the all-electric racing space.
Past Formula 1 champion Nico Rosberg, whose RXR team featuring drivers Johan Kristoffersson and Molly Taylor won the 2021 championship, said: “Winning the inaugural Extreme E championship was just incredible. But our team is about more than just winning. We’re also here to promote an important message.
“A key reason we exist is to drive awareness, educate, and help tackle climate change. And we aim to leave a lasting legacy that drives localized change in each location that Extreme E visits. Last year, we were able to achieve some incredible things through this series, and that was just the beginning. Looking forward to an exciting new season and hopefully another win for RXR! To be Champions is such an honor. We came into Extreme E to raise awareness of climate change and promote sustainability, but also as a racing team, we want to win and so we will remember this feeling forever.”
Kristoffersson and Taylor tied in the points standings with Lewis Hamilton’s X44 duo of Sébastien Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez, but RXR claimed the championship because it won three of the five events.
Extreme E is the only motor racing series in the world today that mandates both a male and female driver for every team. This step toward gender equality is followed in 2022 by a commitment to development at the grassroots level.
At the 2021 season finale at Dorset, in the U.K., Extreme E hosted an event for 50 local schoolgirls with female motorsport initiative Girls on Track U.K. Girls on Track U.K. (formerly known as Dare To Be Different) is an initiative started in 2016 by former Formula One test driver Susie Wolff. Now managed by governing body Motorsport U.K., as part of FIA’s global Girls on Track program, it focuses on inspiring, connecting, and showcasing females in motorsport, as well as through science, technology and math (STEM) initiatives.
The girls, aged between 11 and 12 years old, got to experience life behind the scenes of Extreme E, as well as being shown the many future potential career opportunities within the sport. The series’ intention was to build on this work and inspire girls all over the world with these memorable insights throughout this new season.
Extreme E’s Legacy Programs are integral to the series and aim to provide both social and environmental support at each race location. Project selection is led by the location’s scientist, with support from all five members of the independent Scientific Committee.
For example, at Lac Rose, Senegal, following the Ocean X Prix Final, the Extreme E staff, guests, and drivers (Jamie Chadwick, Stéphane Sarrazin, Kevin Hansen, Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky) came straight off the podium to take part in a beach clean-up of the race course. They collected more than 100 bags of waste from the sands of Lac Rose and the admiration from Stephan Senghor, the Senegalese eco-entrepreneur and founder of GroupeSenghor, which is working with Extreme E.
Senghor said, “We're not here for show. We are here to make some real change happen. This is the message that Extreme E is conveying: its technology, its radical sport, but also care for the planet. And care for the planet comes with action, not just intention. Extreme E has demonstrated that in Lac Rose. There aren’t many sports where drivers come straight from the press conference to pick up trash on the beach.”
To combat the plastic-pollution problem, Extreme E used the Ocean X Prix Legacy Program to partner with EcoZone’s EcoBriques project. Communities are producing “ecobriques,” which are PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles filled with dry and non-recyclable waste, mainly post-consumer plastics. Those ultimately will turn more than 40 tons of waste into building bricks.
Susan Wade has lived in the Seattle area for 40 years, but motorsports is in the Indianapolis native’s DNA. She has emerged as one of the leading drag-racing writers with nearly 30 seasons at the racetrack, focusing on the human-interest angle. She was the first non-NASCAR recipient of the prestigious Russ Catlin Award and has covered the sport for the Chicago Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger, and Seattle Times. She has contributed to Autoweek as a freelance writer since 2016.
