Next Race | Island Xprix, Sardinia, Italy, 6-7 & 9-10 July 2022
Driving electric vehicles to new heights of endurance
You place the highest demands on our tyres, and that’s why we embrace every challenge – to pursue new milestones in performance and safety. And now that we’re a Founding Partner of Extreme E, a fresh adventure is about to begin. Join us in a race series that ventures into uncharted territory: tracks in the most inhospitable corners of the world, sustainable off-road vehicles with a powerful electric drive, and a racing series where victory is only possible through perfect coordination between vehicle and driver.
Extreme races to the remotest corners of the world
Think an electric car is only for commuting in the city? Think again. The new season of Extreme E will take you to the planet's most remote and most untamed regions. With teams of professional drivers competing in extreme conditions for the ultimate prize, motorsport has never been more exhilarating.
With the momentum of the Formula E series, where global audiences have grown to 330 million in just four seasons, the time was right for a whole new kind of racing event. Extreme E brings high-performance sports utility vehicles to the harshest road conditions imaginable, where only the most fearless drivers, aided by precisely engineered technology, can succeed.
Extreme E sees 10 teams with one male and one female driver compete in 5 locations across the globe. And as a founding partner of the series, we will once again provide custom-built tyres to ensure the perfect grip, whether in South America, the Saudi Arabian desert, or the beautiful coastline of Sardinia.
Extreme E is also an innovative format addressing important trends in our industry like electrification, trends towards SUVs, as well as aiming to create awareness in the topic of sustainability.
The series aims to combine world-class motorsport and driving in the most demanding environments in the world, providing manufacturers with an important platform for research and development of their sustainable mobility solutions.
Location, location, location to the extreme
Absolutely integral to the Extreme E experience is the RMS St Helena, a former Royal Mail ship which transports the teams and our intrepid competitors to five different race locations around the world.
The ship has been transformed and upgraded with a multimillion pound retrofit, and doubles as an operating base and floating paddock for the global expedition; it has a state-of-the-art garage plus a central hub for operations, logistics, communications, and accommodation.
So where will the Extreme E adventure lead us, and what challenging conditions will the drivers face?
- Location 1 - Desert X Pris
- Location 2 & 3 - Island X Pris
19 – 20 February 2022: Saudi Arabia, NEOM.
Season 2 gets underway in the sustainable future metropolis of NEOM in Saudi Arabia, where Extreme E competitors will face sweltering heat and sandy terrain. NEOM is a futuristic idea that will one day house big minds and businesses working towards a new model of sustainability. All this and more makes this the ideal location for the opening race of Extreme E, Season 2.
6-7 & 9-10 July, Italy, Sardinia.
For its first race in Europe proper, Extreme E is headed to Sardinia. The Italian island’s 1,240 miles (2,000km) of coastline offer a visually spectacular and varied terrain surrounded by the Mediterranean. The Island X Prix will take place on sand, but it won’t be a stroll on the beach. The drivers will have to contend with changes in elevation, gravel and maybe even rocks. Four-wheel drive will be essential to help the electric SUVs deal with slippage on the shifting surface.
The toughest tyre ever made
Extreme E is the most extreme racing series the world has ever seen. A new race, held under such unique and challenging conditions, required a new kind of tyre. As an Extreme E Founding Partner, we’re doing our bit to ensure all competitors have the best possible equipment to deal with whatever trials they face. We carefully examined the requirements of the race series and built an ultra-high-performance tyre which specifically addresses the needs of the competing teams. The performance optimised tyres are not just built for extreme conditions, but also for the unique requirements of the competing pure electric SUVs.
Scorching heat or blistering cold; muddy, sandy or icy – no matter how extreme the conditions, the drivers and their vehicles need a reliable tyre that provides grip, traction and excellent performance at every stage of the race. Our CrossContact™ LX, the basis of the tyre developed for Extreme E, is a well-balanced all-season touring tyre with a specially designed tread to enhance traction and stability on practically any surface.
For season 2, we’re taking things to another level. Our new CrossContact™ tyre is all about sustainability, keeping with the Extreme E tradition of fostering environmental consciousness. Our CrossContact™ is now more sustainable than ever, with one-third of the tyre made of reused materials.
Rally driving has never been so electric
All Extreme E participants use the same set of standardised equipment. That’s where motorsport manufacturer Spark Racing Technology comes into the picture; they will create, assemble and deliver a brand-new electric SUV model for the brave pioneers of the off-road racing series.
Another critical component of the Extreme E cars will be the battery. The same company which assembled the batteries and cells for the first four seasons of the ABB FIA Formula E Championship, Williams Advanced Engineering, is responsible for this essential item.
How to win the extreme e championship
Extreme E is a global racing championship that sees all-electric SUVs battle head-to-head in some of the world’s most extreme environments.
There are two days of racing per event. The qualifying sessions will take place on the first day before the final rounds will be held on the second day. Each team races twice on day 1 in grids up to four cars. At the end of day 1, the top four progress to semi-final 1 and the bottom four go into semi-final 2, the so called “crazy race”. The top three from semi-final 1 progress to the final, but only one from the all-or-nothing “crazy race”. The winner of the final wins the X prix.
The off-road stages will be around 5 miles (8km) in length, and there will be two laps per race. After the first lap the drivers have to switch so that one lap is driven by the female and one lap driven by the male driver.