The new established Extreme E off-road racing series is about to kick off, with the vehicles of the nine participating teams on their way across the Mediterranean to the inaugural race on April 3 and 4, in Saudi Arabia.

Extreme E is an off-road racing championship for all-electric sports-utility vehicles (SUVs) – the standardised Odyssey 21 e-SUV – that will be held in locations hurt by climate change, such as Greenland (the Arctic) and the Amazon, in Brazil, in order to promote environmental repair and protection.

The event is sanctioned by motorsport governing body, the FIA.

The championship mandates each team to run with a male and female driver.

Each driver will complete one lap behind the wheel, with a changeover incorporated into the race format. 

The teams will determine which driver goes first to best suit their strategy, with driver order selections made confidentially, and competitors kept in the dark as to other teams’ choices until the cars reach the starting line. 

A hyperdrive boost will also be available to each driver on each lap of the race. 

Activated when the driver presses a button on their steering wheel, the team will enjoy an increase in power for a fixed amount of time.

The teams competing in the Extreme E off-road racing series are the JBXE team, which consists of former Formula 1 world champion Jenson Button, as well as Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky.

Åhlin-Kottulinsky is component manufacturer Continental’s test pilot and brand ambassador. In recent years, the Swedish driver has competed in the Scirocco R-Cup Germany and in the rallycross discipline. 

In the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship in 2018 she made history as the first and only woman ever to win races in that series. 

Nico Rosberg’s Rosberg X Racing team consists of three-time world rallycross champion Johan Kristoffersson, from Sweden, and Molly Taylor. 

The 32-year-old Taylor is currently the only woman to have won the title in Australia’s national rally championship. 

At the age of 28, she was not only the first female champion, but also the youngest champion in the history of the Australian Rally Championship.

Lewis Hamilton’s X44 team consists of Sébastien Loeb and Cristina Gutiérrez. 

Frenchman Loeb made his debut in the 1999 World Rally Championship, achieved nine World Championship titles, 79 World Rally Championship wins, and racked up more than 1 600 World Championship points, making him the most successful rally driver in history. 

Gutiérrez has taken to the starting grid of each Dakar Rally over the past five years – and crossed the finishing line every time. 

In 2021, she become the second woman in the history of the Dakar Rally to win a stage.

Stéphane Sarrazin and Jamie Chadwick will be starting for the Veloce Racing team.

Sarrazin is a racing driver with experience as a Formula 1 test driver and has racing experience from GT, rally and sports car races. 

British racing driver Chadwick is a development driver for Williams in Formula 1. 

She won the MRF Challenge Formula 2000 in 2019 and is the current holder of the W Series title.

Veloce Racing has a South African link too, as two-time South African Cross Country Series champion Lance Woolridge has been drafted into the team as reserve driver – making him the only South African driver involved in the series. 

The Chip Ganassi Racing team consists of Kyle LeDuc and Sara Price.

American LeDuc has won seven Pro-4 championships in the Lucas Oil Offroad Racing Series, as well as two Pro-4 World Championships.

Price is the 19-time winner of the US Motocross Championship and the first factory-supported woman there – under Kawasaki. 

She has won medals in motocross at the X Games too, which is the largest extreme sports event in the US. 

The members of the Andretti United Extreme E team are Timmy Hansen and Catie Munnings.

Swede Hansen is the FIA’s current World Rallycross champion.

Munnings is a British rally driver who, in 2016, won the FIA European Rally Championship Ladies Trophy. 

In 2018, she came second overall with four season wins. In 2019, she won the Ladies’ category in the Liepaja Rally.

The Hispano Suiza Xite Energy team includes Oliver Bennett and Christine Giampaoli Zonca.

British driver Bennett made his debut in the 2016 British Rallycross Championship and has been competing in the Rallycross World Championship since 2017. 

Giampaoli Zonca is a rally driver who made her debut in the 2016 World Rally Championship.

She has been taking part in off-road races in the US and Mexico since 2017, achieving third place in the T2 category in the Andalucia Rally last year. 

Two-time World Rally champion, four-time vice world champion and four-time winner of the Dakar Rally, Carlos Sainz is taking to the wheel himself in the Acciona | Sainz XE team, which he co-founded. 

His team mate, Laia Sanz, holds more than 30 championship titles in various international trial, enduro, and cross-country competitions, is a five-time winner of the Women’s Enduro World Championship, and ten-time winner of the Dakar Rally in the Female class. 

The ABT CUPRA XE team consist of Mattias Ekström and Claudia Hürtgen.

Swede Ekström successfully competed in the FIA World Rallycross Championship. In 2016, he became world champion. 

German driver Hürtgen recently took to the starting line in the ADAC GT4 Germany and, for the 15th time in total, in the 24 Hours Nürburgring race.