If you aren't familiar with Extreme E, then you can be forgiven. As excited as I got about it at the beginning of the season, it hasn't really seen any mainstream adoption and the most reliable place to watch it live is their YouTube channel.
Positioned as "Motorsport with a conscience", the sport describes itself as:
Extreme E is a series with a mission, to highlight the devastating effects of the climate crisis and demonstrate positive steps that can be taken to protect the planet source
Since this initial mission statement was written, they have elaborated (or adjusted) it slightly to include Biodiversity. This could be because their races in Nepal, Brazil and Argentina were cancelled due to Covid and subsequent races in Italy and the UK rearranged. The UK seeing a significant, ongoing reduction in biodiversity.
There's lots to like about this series the cars, the engineering, how everything's transported, the scientists, the drivers, the focus on equality and diversity. All great initiatives that have tempted the likes of Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg, Carlos Sainz, Michael Andretti and Jenson Button (amongst other well known figures in motorsport) to get involved. Next year will see Mercedes join the fold and hopefully this will continue the focus of car manufacturers to think more sustainably.
I'm yet to catch up with this weekend's action down in Dorset - a county that I know well having owned a flat not too far from Bovington. But it's a battle much like the 2016 Formula 1 world championship between Nico Rosberg's "Rosberg X Racing" and Lewis Hamilton's "X44". Going into the weekend, it was advantage Rosberg but all it will take is a bad landing off one of the ramps and it'll be game over.
Hopefully I will have time to write some more once the weekend's action is over and we have our 1st Extreme E champions.