Extreme E: The team by team guide

Originally devised in 2018 by Formula E co-founder Alejandro Agag and two-time Champ Car champion Gil de Ferran, Extreme E will take off-road racing in all-electric SUVs to locations hurt most by climate change to promote environment repair and protection.

With racing at the heart of the new series, and the backing of motorsport governing body the FIA, Extreme E is the newest attraction in the motorsport arena and boasts some of the biggest names from across multiple motorsport disciplines to provide some star pulling power.

But with new cars, new faces and an all-new series to become familiar with, here is the rundown of the Extreme E competitors set to contest the inaugural season.

Abt Cupra

Claudia Hurtgen, ABT CUPRA XE and Mattias Ekstrom, ABT CUPRA XE

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / Motorsport Images

Extreme E has, by accident rather than design, become the default headline motorsport programme for Abt this year. After winning five DTM teams’ titles between 2002 and 2009, the tuning company will stay put in the German tin-top series with a three-car charge. But this comes as the halo Class 1 regulations make way for less inspiring GT3 kit.

Abt then missed out on a 125th birthday present to itself in 2021. It guided Lucas di Grassi to the 2016-17 Formula E drivers’ crown while fronting Audi’s entry. In response to the marque’s decision to quit the championship at the end of this season, Abt submitted a bid over the winter to buy the team licence, but the paperwork wasn’t signed in time.

That leaves Extreme E. Partnering Cupra – the SEAT offshoot was the first manufacturer to sign with a team – Abt maintains its enduring alliance with the Volkswagen Group.

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Claudia Hurtgen

A touring and sportscar pro, Hurtgen backed up her 1997 Daytona 24 Hours class win with a Le Mans GT2 podium the next year. While a 2000 Monaco Historic Grand Prix race win in a Maserati 300S proves skill managing oversteer, she has no off-road competition experience beyond Extreme E testing.

Mattias Ekstrom

His Extreme E assault is the 20th season in which Ekstrom will have raced for the Abt team. That time together is headlined by a brace of DTM titles. When the Swede bade farewell to the smooth asphalt, he proved adept on the rough stuff, winning the 2016 World Rallycross crown.

Acciona Sainz

ACCIONA Sainz XE Team, Extreme E

This Spanish operation took a leaf out of the British Touring Car Championship’s book when it came to deciding a name that blurs the line between sponsorship and race team. In truth, electric mobility firm QEV Technologies is behind the entry. But it will operate under the Acciona banner as part of a commercial tie-up with the renewable energy company, which in 2017 backed the first all-electric car to finish the Dakar Rally.

Clearly, however, the most exciting part of the name is that of two-time World Rally champion and three-time Dakar victor Carlos Sainz Sr. A friend of Extreme E co-founder Alejandro Agag, Sainz is part of the convoluted ownership structure.

QEV, meanwhile, has ties to sister all-electric championship Formula E, having assisted the running of the Mahindra Racing and NIO 333 squads. Initial noise about employing ex-Formula 1 driver Pedro de la Rosa as team principal has gone quiet.

Laia Sanz
There have been fleeting 24H Series and SEAT Eurocup outings with middling results, but on two wheels Sanz is first-rate. She holds over 30 international trials, enduro and cross-country titles. In the female motorbike division of the Dakar Rally, she won 10 times between 2000 and 2013.

Carlos Sainz Sr
The lad in the F1 Ferrari is still a long way off his dad’s legendary status in the sport: 58-year-old Sainz Sr was the 1990 and 1992 World Rally champion, after all. While there’s one Extreme E rival with even stronger WRC pedigree, off-road king Sainz stands proud thanks to those Dakar Rally triumphs.

Andretti United

A member of the Andretti United Extreme E team works on their Odyssey 21

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images

United Autosports and well-established IndyCar and Formula E team Andretti Autosport have once again combined to form the succinctly named Andretti United. In time, the entry into Extreme E could well become this Anglo-American union’s middle child.

Via the Walkinshaw Andretti United concern, since 2018 the pair have competed together in Australian Supercars with a brace of Holden Commodore ZBs. Now that McLaren Racing has signed an option for a place on the Formula E grid for the advent of the Gen3 era, its boss, United Autosports co-owner Zak Brown, will likely be persuading the Woking boardroom for a further collaboration with Michael Andretti to replace the departing BMW. In the meantime, the Extreme E bid – which was launched by Andretti, with United coming on board soon after – marks the off-road debut for both class squads.

Catie Munnings
An excellent TV presenter in her spare time, Red Bull-backed Munnings has been on the radar for a little while. The 23-year-old contested Rally Sweden last year but is best-known for competing in the European Rally Championship. Extreme E is by far the highest-profile gig of her career.

Timmy Hansen
After a respectable run up the junior single-seater ladder to Formula Renault 2.0 level, the eldest Hansen brother made his switch to rallycross competition in 2012. He’s since upheld family honour – dad Kenneth is a 14-time FIA mixed-surface champion – by winning the World title in 2019.

Chip Ganassi Racing

Chip Ganassi Racing, Extreme E

Although the Odyssey 21 E-SUV powertrain is standardised for all nine teams, the Extreme E machine entered by American motorsport powerhouse Chip Ganassi has received some styling tweaks that should help it stand out. As truck maker GMC brings back the Hummer moniker with an all-electric 1000bhp model for 2022, it’s signed a deal with the Ganassi race team, which counts nine IndyCar drivers’ championships, four CART/Champ Car drivers’ titles and four Indianapolis 500 wins from its 30-year history.

The car will receive bodywork resembling the headlights and grille of the forthcoming Hummer as a result. And Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Los Angeles runabout has some off-road competition lineage to boot. NASCAR veteran Robby Gordon has contested the Dakar Rally in Hummer kit between 2006 and 2015, scoring six stage wins and a third place in 2009.

Ganassi, meanwhile, has rough-stuff exposure from a couple of seasons in the US-based Global Rallycross Championship, which yielded two wins and a further nine podiums.

Sara Price
Lady Gaga and Jason Statham stunt double Price was the first Extreme E driver to be officially signed by a team. She’s also the first female racer ever on the books at Chip Ganassi Racing. She secured the seat thanks to 19 US Motocross titles plus a flurry of Stadium Super Truck appearances.

Kyle LeDuc
LeDuc’s name might not register too highly this side of the Atlantic, but he’s a formidable dirt racer in the US. That’s on account of his seven Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series Pro-4 championship titles and two more on the World stage. He was also fifth in the 2016 Baja 1000.

Hispano Suiza

Oliver Bennett, Hispano Suiza, Extreme E

Hispano Suiza is the Extreme E equivalent of the Spyker Formula 1 team: both trace their names back to the turn of the 20th century when they started out in the aviation industry. Both then transitioned to the manufacturing of cars, which were sporting and luxury rivals for Rolls-Royce, before falling out of public consciousness for several decades. Both then found new ownership and enjoyed a revival, led by a high-profile motorsport campaign.

Hispano Suiza’s muted comeback didn’t really get going until it debuted the 1000bhp all-electric Carmen concept car at the 2019 Geneva Motor Show. Now it’s entering Extreme E as a replacement for HWA, which pulled out for “economic and strategic reasons” that were “mainly driven” by the global health crisis.
The team will be managed by Juli Mundet Caballero, a long-time World Rallycross engineer who previously worked at Campos Racing during the SEAT Leon’s tenure at World and European Touring Car level.

Christine Giampaoli Zonca
It’s five years since Giampaoli Zonca bagged the spoils in the female category of the Spanish Gravel Rally Championship. Since then, she’s twice entered Rally Spain in a Peugeot 208 R2 before better establishing herself in the US and Mexico, where she plies her trade in off-road buggies.

Oliver Bennett
Following an injury, the Bristolian converted from motocross to rally a Group N Subaru Impreza. Bennett was third in the 2017 British Rallycross championship, taking the most points but losing out on dropped scores. Since then, he’s performed at World RX level and in North America.

Veloce Racing

Stephane Sarrazin, Jamie Chadwick, Veloce Racing, Extreme E

An Esports team that’s come to life, Veloce Racing enters Extreme E with its ducks in a row. Although it counts five different co-owners, including double Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne, the team will be managed by Ian Davies. He brings a bundle of off-road experience thanks to a CV that counts 15 years of service at M-Sport plus a host of rallycross and Dakar Rally engineering roles.

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Veloce Racing has been front-footed. Unlike other teams, it’s recruited two reserve drivers in Lance Woolridge and Emma Gilmour. They will receive team passes to attend each event and work directly on the car. That provides readily available options for the cockpit in the event of a COVID outbreak that would leave Extreme E’s own brace of stand-ins – Timo Scheider and Jutta Kleinschmidt – in massive demand. Formula 1 design ace Adrian Newey is also listed as the team’s ‘lead visionary’.

Jamie Chadwick
At 22, Chadwick is the youngest Extreme E competitor. The Williams Formula 1 development driver has made it clear that defending her W Series crown is the priority in 2021. That means calendar clashes for Greenland and Brazil will likely leave Emma Gilmour taking her place.

Stephane Sarrazin
Jean-Eric Vergne stepped aside from racing in Extreme E to leave space for Sarrazin, who he reckons is a ‘once-in-a-generation’ talent. It’s easier to list the race and rally championships the French racer hasn’t achieved success in. But his career is topped by five overall Le Mans 24 Hours podiums.

Rosberg X Racing

Nico Rosberg, founder and CEO, Rosberg X Racing, takes a selfie with Molly Taylor, Rosberg X Racing

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images

As a stakeholder in Formula E and the co-creator of the Greentech Festival, Nico Rosberg has been particularly active in the field of environmental sustainability following his shock retirement as the newly crowned Formula 1 world champion in 2016.

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Finally making his formal return to front-line motorsport as a team owner, the former Mercedes driver has created Rosberg X Racing (initially called Rosberg Xtreme Racing, but then revised for better logo symmetry). It lands as a development of the Team Rosberg DTM concern, which was founded by Nico’s 1982 Formula 1 championship-winning father Keke.

Many of the crew have come direct from the Audi RS5 Turbo programme, including team principal Kimmo Liimatainen. He drove for Rosberg Sr’s German Formula 3 squad in 2002 and, incidentally, finished third in the 1995 Formula A World Karting Championship behind new Extreme E rival Jenson Button and champion Gastao Fraguas.

Molly Taylor
In 2016, Taylor, then 28, became the youngest driver to win the Australian Rally Championship. Extreme E preparation has not been without incident. Putting a buggy on its roof earned the nickname ‘Roly Taylor’. But with a further eight rally titles under her belt, she’s set to have the last laugh.

Johan Kristoffersson
Kristoffersson is criminally underappreciated for his dry wit. But his motorsport credentials need little in the way of embellishment. His new employer Rosberg rates him as the greatest rallycross driver of all time. With three World RX titles to his name, Kristoffersson can certainly stake a claim.

JBXE

Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky, JBXE Extreme-E Team, and Jenson Button, JBXE Extreme-E Team

Photo by: Colin McMaster / Motorsport Images

Jenson Button followed hot on the heels of fellow Formula 1 world champions Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg by forming his own Extreme E squad to contest the inaugural season. But he’s gone a step further than his old sparring partners and will actually race for his own JBXE team as he aims to trace his father John’s successful British and Lydden Hill Rallycross Championship roots.

Although such entries are months in the planning, the announcement of JBXE was made just 10 weeks ahead of the maiden desert X-Prix in Saudi Arabia. As such, it’s been a tight schedule.

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A white and fluorescent yellow livery for the team’s Odyssey pays homage to Button’s 2009 title-winning Brawn GP machine. Further racing kudos comes from a tie-up with technical partner Lotus Engineering as Geely, the new owner at Hethel, pushes the marque further down the path towards electrification.

Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky
The final Extreme E driver to be announced after the 11th-hour collapse of the Techeetah entry, Ahlin-Kottulinsky is the only woman to bag poles and race wins in the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship. A Rallycross Lites cameo is on her CV alongside a couple of seasons racing an Audi R8 LMS.

Jenson Button
Button first tried his luck at off-road racing in the 2019 Mint 400, which ran around Las Vegas. That served as preparation ahead of the Baja 1000. Also, he fared much better than David Coulthard when the pair hopped aboard World Rallycross supercars to film a segment for the BBC’s Formula 1 coverage in 2015.

X44

Sebastien Loeb, X44, Extreme E

Extreme E co-founder Alejandro Agag has no airs and graces about Lewis Hamilton taking his first steps into team ownership by creating X44. Agag readily admits he actively approached the seven-time Formula 1 world champion to join the series. It wasn’t the other way around, as convention would have it.

But more than any other person associated with Extreme E, Hamilton is here because of the platform for advocacy that the series offers. Only with this grounding could Agag have managed to attract the biggest name in motorsport. Hamilton will not only use X44 as a way to promote environmental sustainability and gender equality, but also to offer career opportunities for mechanics and engineers from minority ethnic backgrounds.

As should be expected, Hamilton’s involvement will be hands-off. He and David Richards have finally acted on their gentlemen's agreement to work together as Prodrive will lead the set-up.

Cristina Gutierrez
Another high-ranking Dakar Rally exponent, Gutierrez has finished each of the five editions she’s entered. In that time, she’s made history by becoming the first Spanish woman to complete the event in the car class. Earlier this year, she became only the second woman to win a stage.

Sebastien Loeb
Nine World Rally Championship crowns, 14 Dakar Rally stage victories, two World Rallycross event wins and pretty handy at the roundy-roundy stuff too. Loeb’s on and off-road credentials are without question. So much so, he has two more top-flight titles than well-decorated employer Hamilton.

Drivers line-up

Photo by: Zak Mauger / Motorsport Images