Desert X Prix 2021 - motor sports (not really) meets environmental protection

Greetings, friends of motor racing. In today's blog post, I'd like to share some thoughts on Extreme E, which held its first race on the Easter weekend with the Desert X Prix.

My conclusion after the debut of the racing series: As good as the idea was, THIS implementation was nothing but a big pile of sh.... And there's nothing to sugarcoat about it at all.

Sporting chaos without any value

It all started in the days leading up to the X Prix: within just one week, the race series completely overhauled its race format and scoring - twice! The two races with four and five cars respectively became three races with three cars each, the qualifying races became time trials.

The third and last race before the final, the "Shoot Out", was not even broadcasted. The change of the race format was probably too spontaneous to change the streaming schedule. And why it is called "Shoot Out"? All three participants - if the cars are still (off-)roadworthy - have already been eliminated and only positions 7 to 9 are at stake.

A copy of the sporting regulations to read up on the points in question? They have not been available even on request. So we in our editorial office did not know until the start of the qualifying that both drivers were competing in each session and that there was a "switch". Then, with the start of the second qualifying session, we were only informed that the pairing here had to start in reverse order. How unprofessional is that, please?

The mode called "Hyperdrive" with extra power was now available for each driver in each lap instead of for the longest jump. The extra power was available for four seconds. But how much power this was, was not communicated.

Apparently, after two rollovers in the first qualifying session, the people in charge realised that there wouldn't be many cars left in the end if this continued. So they reduced the power of the cars to 225 kW for the rest of the weekend. Less than Formula E in qualifying mode.

Technical problems like the power steering failings on the new Odyssey 21 SUVs can always occur. But isn't that what test drives are for?

Completely surprisingly, it only became clear in the course of the track construction that you can't drive with several cars in a row in the desert. Too much dust, who would have thought of that?

The races themselves offered a lot of excitement - from the start to the second gate, when it was no longer possible to drive side by side. A whole 30 seconds of racing action was offered. The remaining eleven minutes of the race have been a farce: the drivers had to leave a gap of at least 25 seconds to the driver in front in order to be able to see anything at all because of the swirling dust.

Only one driver in the whole field drove with less distance: Kyle LeDuc was reckless enough to actually try to overtake Claudia Hürtgen on track. This only worked until Hürtgen slowed down because of a big bump and LeDuc hit her in the rear with such an excess of speed that the ABT Cupra car is now a total loss.

The race stewards also seem not to have had their best day. There is no other way to explain why they obviously miscalculated the penalty for the Rosberg X Racing team. The official documents show that speeding in the "switch zone" is punishable by 5 penalty seconds for every kilometre per hour the vehicle was too fast.

Kristoffersson or Taylor were measured at 44 km/h at the permitted 30 km/h. They were thus 14 km/h too fast. They were therefore 14 km/h too fast, as they also correctly state in the official document. However, they did not manage to multiply 14 by 5 correctly.

Driving 14 km/h too fast, with 5 penalty seconds per 1 km/h speeding... thinking... calculating... makes 60 seconds time penalty in total. That was easy! #epicfail #DesertXPrix @RosbergXRacing @ExtremeELive pic.twitter.com/n7yR8PNGwZ

— Tobias Wirtz (@tobiw_apex) April 6, 2021

So much for the sporting side of things. But that is only a secondary matter in  Extreme E, as is emphasised in all publications.

Legacy Project: When desertification is a too dry subject

Instead, they want to draw attention to the effects of human-made climate change. The theme of the Desert X Prix is desertification.

However, the topic does not seem to have played a major role when the Legacy Project was chosen on site: the aim is to support the preservation of the habitat of two sea turtle species in the Red Sea. Desertification seems to have been a too dry subject. In the truest sense of the word.

The topic of sea turtles was also shown in Formula E in December 2014, at the Punta del Este E-Prix with Michaela Cerruti and Jaime Alguersuari. It worked well back then, so you can do it with the Extreme as well.

According to the press release, one of the objectives is to protect an area called Ras Baridi, 50 km north of the city of Yanbu. From Al-'Ula, this stretch of beach is about 250 km away as the crow flies.

To further "illustrate" the issue, they had drivers, team owners and other race series personnel collect plastic waste from this stretch of beach. How did the group of at least 50 people get from the race venue to this stretch of beach? Certainly not emission-free with electricity from green hydrogen, just like the racing cars.

But I also find the photo used in the Extreme E press release particularly exciting. The original image description in this press release (alt tag) is: "cute group of newborn baby hawksbill sea turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata) on the sand at the beach  walking to the sea after emerging leaving the nest at Bahia coast, Brazil, with coconut palm tree"

To announce the project in Saudi Arabia, Extreme E use a "cute" picture with baby turtles from Brazil, more than 9,000 km away from Saudi Arabia. You can like it, but you don't have to.

I support the project itself 100 per cent and have nothing against it at all. When I was a child, I wanted to be a marine biologist and I don't eat fish since then. I think the world's oceans are ecosystems worth preserving and I am an outspoken opponent of overfishing. I only eat seafood if it comes from Belgium ;-)

But this is not the point - the project has nothing to do with desertification.

"Race without a trace"

Extreme E is committed to leaving no footprint on the places where they race. For this reason, no spectators are allowed on site. At least if you count VIP guests like series founder Alejandro Agag or team owners like Nico Rosberg, Chip Ganassi or Zak Brown not as spectators but as staff of the race series or the teams.

When I saw the pictures from Al-'Ula, however, I found this hard to believe.

Soil erosion as a result of off-road driving is a big issue that also affects the Desert X Prix. Claudia Hürtgen, for example, said after her accident with Kyle LeDuc that she had to reduce her speed because there had been a bump. "the bumps were new - yesterday there were no bumps," Hürtgen told 'Autosport'.

However, such a bump doesn't just happen overnight, not even due to wind or sunlight. In my eyes, it is a consequence of the fact that the Extreme E cars did their laps there.

Whether Alejandro Agag and Nico Rosberg ran around the 9-kilometre-long track after the race, as they had done on the beach before to collect waste, and filled in the tracks left by the cars with a shovel, is justifiably doubtful.

If it were that simple... Effects such as compaction of the soil in places where many vehicles have driven along cannot be undone just like that. In my eyes, "race without a trace" is nothing more than PR drivel. Or wishful thinking, if you want to put it positively.

"Wes Brot ich ess, des Lied ich sing"

This is an old German saying from the medieval period. Translated, it means roughly: In my songs I praise the one who pays for my food.

Critical reporting is not welcome in Saudi Arabia. This has been known at least since Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman allegedly had Jamal Khashoggi, a journalist who wrote critically about the Saudi government, murdered in Istanbul and then had his body dismembered.

The international non-governmental organisation Reporters Without Borders writes: "Saudi Arabia permits no independent media. The authorities keep Saudi journalists under close surveillance." This is probably what Extreme E took its cue from when they took an Autosport (and therefore Motorsport Network) journalist to Saudi Arabia.

I personally think Instagram is great. Especially because everyone can see there how, for example, that journalist was involved in the PR activities of the racing series. Whether as a waste collector on the beach, in the evening lighting in the presumed VIP area or on a speedboat on the way to St. Helena - he was there (according to his private Instagram account).

It's no surprise then that his Autosport article is titled: "How Extreme E exceeded expectations to pass its first major test".

And further: "The racing may have lacked the explosive conclusion to Formula E's first race in 2014 and was not without its hiccups. But Extreme E's leap into the unknown appears to have paid off, delivering a spectacle quite unlike anything else."

As the rest of the article is behind the 'Autosport Plus' paywall, I can't say anything further about the content at this point. But what should be clear: Extreme E certainly doesn't have to fear big criticism. At least not from the world's largest motorsport network.

Pictures: Extreme E