New racing series “Extreme E”: Rosberg and Hamilton fight each other again


New racing series “Extreme E”
Rosberg and Hamilton fight again

Nico Rosberg is the last Formula 1 world champion who was not called Lewis Hamilton: In the team-internal duel, the German had defeated the British, they were no longer friends in the end. After Rosberg’s resignation, both are now rivals again. In a new series, they compete against each other in new roles.

When Lewis Hamilton comes into play, Nico Rosberg just can’t stop pricking. Hamilton is “also campaigning against climate change, basically he is a bit in my footsteps on this path to sustainability,” said Rosberg smugly of the “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”. The 2016 world champion promised to the “Bild” newspaper: “Neither Lewis nor I want to finish second. There will be a lot of fighting spirit. But the nice thing is: the more intense our fight, the more attention we can for all the important ones Generate topics. “

The rivalry of the Formula 1 world champions flares up again in Extreme E. Team bosses are the former Mercedes opponents in the new racing series, in which electric SUVs drive in places where the consequences of climate change are already drastically visible.

A Formula 1 world champion drives himself

The series wants to wake up, to show the transience of nature to a larger audience – and of course also to promote electromobility. The first of five planned stops is on the Easter weekend in Al-Ula in the Saudi Arabian desert. People also drive in Greenland, Patagonia, on the coast of Senegal and in the cleared Amazon region.

“Team X44” is one of nine racing teams that rely on one male and one female pilot. Hamilton has won record rally world champion Sebastien Loeb (France) and the Spaniard Cristina Gutierrez. The figurehead of “Rosberg Xtreme Racing” is the three-time rallycross world champion Johan Kristoffersson from Sweden.

Jutta Kleinschmidt from Cologne, first winner of the 2001 Dakar Rally, and two-time DTM champion Timo Scheider are route advisors and official reserve drivers. Claudia Hürtgen, who drives for the Abt team from Kempten im Allgäu, is one of the German permanent staff. In the British Jenson Button, another Formula 1 champion is himself behind the wheel of one of the 544 hp, fully electric SUVs.

“Motorsport can do something for the environment”

But why all of this? “We believe that motorsport can actually do something for the environment. Significantly more people watch motorsport on television than an environmental documentary,” says serial founder Alejandro Agag. You have to “generate CO2 in order to get rid of CO2 forever,” calculates the former politician and managing director of the related Formula E: “People won’t achieve anything if they stay in bed and say: ‘I don’t generate any emissions in bed. ‘”

And so, measured against the motorsport cosmos, the Extreme E relies on remarkable innovations. The RMS St. Helena, for example, serves as a floating paddock. The discarded British mail ship brings all the equipment to the racing venues or the nearest port. In this way, emissions are reduced compared to shipping by plane, especially since the St. Helena, which is also used as a research ship, has been converted and is powered by low-sulfur diesel.

When “refueling” the racing car, the Extreme E relies on hydrogen fuel cell technology. Water and solar energy generate the hydrogen fuel, which is used to charge the electric drive. The Extreme E races, the so-called XPrix, are sprints over two laps including a driver change, the race distance is a maximum of 16 km. On Holy Saturday in Al-Ula, the five participants in the final on Easter Sunday (12:00 p.m.) will be determined.

.