Extreme E

Extreme E is an off-road, rallycross-style championship for Odyssey electric SUVs. Teams of one male and one female driver share a car and complete one lap of the course each during a race.

The series tries to highlight environmental issues by visiting remote locations affected by climate change and pollution. In the first season, this included the Greenland ice sheet, Lac Rose in Senegal and the AlUla desert region of Saudi Arabia. It was developed by Alejandro Agag, CEO of Formula E. The inspiration for mixed teams came from Agag’s love of tennis, where mixed doubles is still played.

The inaugural season ran for five rounds, although the locations changed from those originally planned, due to difficulties caused by the coronavirus crisis. It began in Saudi and passed through Senegal, Greenland, Sardinia and Dorset, UK. All of the Odyssey cars, team equipment, charging bases and some of the personnel moved between sites on the RMS St Helena, a refitted mail ship. Spectators and extraneous media personnel were not allowed, to reduce the footprint of each XPrix.

As team size was kept minimal, the series provided two “championship drivers”, Timo Scheider and Jutta Kleinschmidt, who were able to substitute for anyone unable to compete at short notice. Jutta Kleinschmidt was called into action after Claudia Hurtgen’s roll in Saudi and took the female Cupra seat for the rest of the season. Tamara Molinaro was drafted in as championship driver. Some teams, such as Veloce, had their own reserve drivers for planned absences. Jenson Button, owner of JBXE, pulled out after the first round to concentrate on management and was replaced by Kevin Hansen, competing alongside his brother Kevin.

Molly Taylor and Johan Kristofferson were the first winners, driving for Nico Rosberg’s Rosberg X Racing, ahead of Cristina Gutierrez Herrero and Sebastien Loeb in X44’s Odyssey. The X44 team is owned by Lewis Hamilton.

Season 1 Championship Table

1. Molly Taylor/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

2. Cristina Gutierrez/Sebastien Loeb (X44)

3. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti United Extreme E)

4. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky (JBXE)

=Kevin Hansen (JBXE)

5. Laia Sanz/Carlos Sainz (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

6. Mattias Ekstrom (Abt Cupra)

=Jutta Kleinschmidt (Abt Cupra)

        7. Sara Price (Segi TV Chip Ganassi)

        =Stephane Sarrazin (Veloce)

        8. Kyle LeDuc (Segi TV Chip Ganassi)

        9. Christine Giampaoli Zonca/Oliver Bennett (Xite Energy Hispano Suiza)

        10. Jamie Chadwick (Veloce)

        11. Emma Gilmour (Veloce)

        12. Jenson Button (JBXE)

        =Lance Woolridge (Veloce)

        13. Claudia Hurtgen (Abt Cupra)

A new team, McLaren, joined for the 2022 championship. Its drivers are Emma Gilmour, who sat in for Jamie Chadwick at Veloce when she was on W Series duty, and Tanner Foust. Other changes in personnel happened for Season 2 and the championship drivers were called into action several times. There were five rounds in 2022, held in Saudi, Sardinia (two races), Chile and Uruguay. Defending champion Molly Taylor only did two rounds as a championship driver this year.

Season 2 Championship Table

1. Cristina Gutierrez/Sebastien Loeb (X44 Vida Carbon Racing)

2. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

3. Laia Sanz/Carlos Sainz (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

4. Sara Price (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

5. Kyle LeDuc (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

6. Nasser Al-Attiyah (Abt Cupra XE)

7. Emma Gilmour/Tanner Foust (Mclaren XE)

8. Klara Andersson (Abt Cupra XE)

9. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Genesys Andretti United Extreme E)

10. Kevin Hansen (JBXE)

11. Tamara Molinaro (Xite Energy Racing)

12. Hedda Hosas (Veloce Racing/JBXE)

13. Timo Scheider (Xite Energy Racing)

14. Molly Taylor (Veloce Racing/JBXE)

15. Oliver Bennett (Xite Energy Racing)

16. RJ Anderson (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

17. Lance Woolridge (Veloce Racing)

18. Christine Giampaoli Zonca (Veloce Racing)

19. Jutta Kleinschmidt (Abt Cupra XE)

20. Ezequiel Perez Companc (Xite Energy Racing)

21. Fraser McConnell (JBXE)

For 2023, the Xite team was taken over by DJ and motorsport mogul Carl Cox. There were ten races spread across four locations: Saudi, Scotland, Sardinia and Chile. The two female championship drivers were Tamara Molinaro and Christine GZ, who stepped back from a full-time drive. Both got to make starts. McLaren driver Emma Gilmour was unfortunately injured in a crash in Scotland and had to pull out. She will not return in 2024.

Season 3 Championship Table

1. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

2. Laia Sanz/Mattias Ekstrom (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

3. Molly Taylor/Kevin Hansen (Veloce Racing)

4. Cristina Gutierrez/Fraser McConnell (X44 Vida Carbon Racing)

5. Amanda Sorensen/RJ Anderson (GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing)

6. Klara Anderson (Abt Cupra XE)

7. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti Attawkilat Extreme E)

8. Tanner Foust (Mclaren XE)

9. Hedda Hosas (JBXE/McLaren)

10. Sebastien Loeb (Abt Cupra XE)

11. Timo Scheider (Carl Cox Motorsport)

12. Andreas Bakkerud (JBXE)

13. Emma Gilmour (Mclaren XE)

14. Lia Block (Carl Cox Motorsport)

15. Christine GZ (Carl Cox Motorsport)

16. Nasser al-Attiyah (Abt Cupra XE)

17. Tamara Molinaro (JBXE)

18. Adrien Tambay (Abt Cupra XE)

19. Heikki Kovalainen (JBXE)

Season 4 was the last season of Extreme E, which will be renamed Extreme H in 2025 and use hydrogen-powered cars. The championship was reduced to four rounds.

Season 4 Championship Table

1. Molly Taylor/Kevin Hansen (Veloce Racing)

2. Laia Sanz/Fraser McConnell (Acciona Sainz XE Team)

3. Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky/Johan Kristofferson (Rosberg X Racing)

4. Catie Munnings/Timmy Hansen (Andretti Attawkilat Extreme E)

5. Cristina Gutierrez/Mattias Ekstrom (NEOM McLaren Extreme E)

6. Gray Leadbetter (Legacy Motor Club)

7. Klara Andersson/Timo Scheider (Sun Minimeal Team)

8. Patrick O'Donovan (Legacy Motor Club)

9. Andreas Bakkerud (JBXE)

10. Travis Pastrana (Legacy Motor Club)

11. Amanda Sorenson (JBXE)

12. Dania Akeel (JBXE)

(Image copyright Zak Mauger/Extreme E)

 

Catie Munnings

Catie Munnings won the European Ladies’ Rally Championship in 2016, aged eighteen and in only her second season of rallying.

She started in 2015, driving a Peugeot 106 in British club rallies, with her father Chris as her co-driver. Chris used to run the Brands Hatch and London rally schools, so Catie grew up around rally cars from a very young age.

Her best finish was 26th in the Lynn Stages Rally.  During the season, she tested a Peugeot, and so impressed watching team managers that they decided to put her straight into the European Championship the following season. In order to be eligible, she needed to have completed six rallies, so she did the Donington Park and Red Dragon events near the start of the year, to add to her four finishes in 2015.

Her ERC car was a Peugeot 208, co-driven by the more experienced German, Anne Katharina Stein. She won two Ladies ERC awards, in the Ypres Rally and the Liepāja Rally in Latvia. In Belgium, she was 65th, seventh in the Junior class and eleventh in ERC3. Her Coupe des Dames was assured when Melissa Debackere retired with accident damage. In Latvia, she was 25th overall, ninth in the ERC3 class, and eighth in the Junior class. She was 16th in the Junior standings at the end of the year, and won the Ladies’ championship.

In 2017, she declined a university place in favour of continuing her rally career. In June 2016, she had hurried back from Ypres in order to take an A-level exam.

Catie’s 2017 season was her second in the ERC with the Saintéloc Junior team. At the beginning of the season, she retired from the Azores Rally after an accident, and finished the Islas Canarias Rally in 68th place, out of 89 finishers. She did three more ERC rallies, the best of which was her last event of the season, the Roma Capitale Rally. She was 25th overall, second lady, and seventh in the Junior Under 27 class. Tamara Molinaro took her Ladies' crown, but she was the runner-up at the end of the year.

She was third in the 2018 ERC3 class, driving the Sainteloc Peugeot again. Her best overall finish was 17th in the Rally Liepaja. She was also 26th in Rally Poland.

At the end of 2018, she announced that she had joined the Red Bull extreme sports family, the first female rally driver to do so.

She continued to rally the Peugeot in 2019, although it was now run by the Peugeot Rally Academy. It was not a vintage season for her in the ERC, where she contested the ERC3 class with Veronica Engan as co-driver. Katie crashed out of the Azores Rally then had to withdraw from the Canary Islands event as she was unwell. Her best finish was 36th in the Rally Liepaja in Latvia and she picked up an ERC Ladies' trophy for her efforts.

There was not much in the way of rallying for her in 2020, partly due to the coronavirus crisis. She entered Rally Sweden in a Ford Fiesta with Swedish co-driver Ida Lidebjer-Granberg and finished the event in 42nd place after a penalty. During the winter season she also competed in the GP Ice Race event in Austrian, driving a Bentley Continental GT for the Bentley team.

Later in the year, she was announced as one of the drivers for Alejandro Agag's Extreme E championship, where mixed teams of two drivers tackle off-road circuits in remote locations. She raced for Andretti United Extreme E with Timmy Hansen.

She and Timmy won the Greenland round of the championship, the Glacier ePrix, and further podium positions in Saudi and the UK helped her to third in the championship. Timmy and Catie were often not the quickest in qualifying, but performed better in the races themselves.

It wasn't quite as good a season for the Andretti pair in 2022. Despite some good performances in qualifying and a Crazy Race win in Sardinia, they only managed one podium position, a third place in Sardinia following their Crazy Race win. They were ninth in the drivers' championship.

Driving solo, she made one guest appearance in a stage rally, driving a Land Rover in the Cambrian Rally in Wales. She was eleventh, with co-driver Claire Williams. She also entered on WorldRX round in Sweden, finishing eighth overall in the RX2e class.

Another season in Extreme E with Timmy Hansen was an up-and-down experience. The pair were second once in Scotland and third once in Sardinia, but a qualifying crash in Chile meant that they had to pull out, dropping them to seventh in the championship.

She also continued in rallycross in 2023, doing the first half of the RX2e series for the Swedish YellowSquad team, driving the Zeroid X1 electric car. The best of her three finishes was a seventh place in Norway.

She competed in electric vehicles on both land and water in 2024, racing in Extreme E and the E1 powerboat series. The final Extreme E season ended in championship fourth for Catie and Timmy, with a second and two third places after fifth in the opening Saudi round.

The same driver pairing competed on water for E1 Series' Team Brazil, apart from one round where Timmy was replaced by Stefan Hagin. They were fifth in the standings, with a best finish of second in the Venice round.

As well as rallying, Catie had a burgeoning media career. She was the presenter of "Catie's Amazing Machines", a show for preschoolers about cars, aircraft and other machinery.

(Image from http://www.sportsister.com)