We exchanged a few questions with Co-Founder of Extreme E, Alejandro Agag in Teulada, Sardinia…dusting away tiny dusty debris off our lens from Europe’s largest Military Base.
Waking up to the Sardinian sunshine, our villa’s view overlooked the Tyrrhenian Sea with a floating St. Helena in the distance. Extreme E, the worlds first electric world championship where Ev Hummer’s race around extreme conditions in 5 different locations each season. The fourth race, Island X Prix was stationed at Sardinia’s military base in Capo Teulada and certainly did not disappoint when it came to racing action from the Crazy Race to Finals – even a torrential rain to end a well-deserved 1st place podium finish by Rosberg X Racing’s Molly Taylor (Australian) and Johan Kristoffersson (Swedish).
Alejandro Agag, co-founder of Extreme E explained, “Our objective is to explain what’s going on,” he continued, “we are a motor racing championship that uses motor sport to break the bubble and to bring environmental action and message to a wider audience. To the motor sport audience.”
This was the first time we had witnessed ourselves such equal partnership and teamwork between male and female drivers. There was certainly a warm family feeling walking into each of the team tents, and that didn’t just account from the 24c weather that was beating down in sunshine on us. It’s a lot to put together, not just the layout and design of the track and of course the teams and drivers, but everything else that goes on in the control room to have an event of this calibre run smoothly in the middle of a military base. “Oh, I’m really incredibly satisfied,” said Alejandro in reply to what his thoughts were on the first season so far, “I’m really, really satisfied. Because, you know, I’m in the engine room, so I know how tricky it is, how difficult it is just to make it happen. So I’m happy it’s happening. And of course, lots of things go wrong, lots of things get fixed, but we’re going like this. So every race is better than the race before.”
As car manufacturers slowly progress to EV, we of course wanted to know how many of the drivers and organizers owned or had driven an electric vehicle too. “You know, I think the EV world is slowly, little slower than we wanted or anticipated, but is slowly gaining traction and cars are being sold. But they [Hummer’s] have never been seen like this,” said Agag, and boy was he right. Fast, dirty, rugged, a lethal ‘#carporn’ innuendo, these cars are big, much bigger then you would imagine in a picture. Smooth rounded lines and carbon fibre along with a duck-tape-like finish, a perfect combination for more aerodynamics! Speed is key here as you see, as everything is about each second driving through the terrain and the most-important ‘Switch’ mid-way though. Formula E, which is coming to Vancouver for the first time in July 2022, is also co-founded by Agag, “the Formula E actually helped a lot, changed the perception about not really electric cars being like, fast and stuff. But never seen like jumping and rocks and things. So, these can change the perception, saying, okay, if I live in a forest or if I live in a mountain with snow… I can also buy an electric car.”
Alejandro Agag explained how we (as the audience) has to learn to be patient! We cannot expect things to happen as fast as the 9,000 lbs and 1000hp Hummer’s, Agag continued, “We’ve only done three races so we’re only at the beginning of that job, but I think the images are very powerful.” Tuning in to watch the race live can be a bit tricky for us Canadian’s as the extreme time zone difference but replays and a cascade of posts through social media such as Instagram will have you keeping up with the action as it happens!
From the early morning hours we walked through the Paddock watching as each team was preparing for the day ahead in most different ways. Some were huddled together talking strategy, others were catching up with their social media while most teams were each delegated different tasks and accomplishing them quietly. The desire to achieve better than the race before, was the common denominator.
The intent of Extreme E is not to change the world but to create a lasting impression, we were fortunate enough to leave a few maple leafs to a few brave soldiers too for our Canadian impression as well! We want to thank the soldiers for driving us back and forth from the morning sun to the pitch black evenings and Med Sea Foundation for explaining to us the importance of the sealife under our feet.
Follow along and keep up to date with us on our Instagram @fuelercanada for more race highlights from the Island X Prix interviews, photos and more!
Be sure to take a look through our Gallery coming soon, downloadable too!
