- Sardinia will play host to two rounds of the Extreme E Championship from the 7th to the 10th of July
- The ASXE Team will compete with a new livery on its Odyssey 21, a new logo and new racing suits for the drivers
The ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team has completely renewed its brand ahead of an Island X Prix that will be crucial for the hopes of the squad in the Extreme E Championship.
The singularity of Sardinia’s Island X Prix is that it will be a double-header event, with one round on the 6th and 7th of July and another one on the 9th and the 10th.
The ASXE Team will take on the challenge with a brand-new livery on its Odyssey 21. Acciona’s characteristic red colour is predominant in the new scheme.
The logo and the racing suits of Carlos Sainz and Laia Sainz have also been updated.
Previously to this week’s event, the team clinched a magnificent second place in the season-opener Desert X Prix, which was held in February in the desert of Saudi Arabia.
Four months have passed since then and the ASXE Team has worked tirelessly to ensure that the drivers can fight for everything in the four rounds that remain on the calendar.
On the 21st and the 22nd of June, Carlos Sainz and Laia Sanz took part in two days of testing in Spain to get again the feel of the Odyssey 21 before this new challenge.
This test was also a good opportunity to work on the new suspension of the off-road electric vehicle, which is a standard component of the series and is brand-new from this event onwards.
With all the lessons learnt, now the ASXE Team is ready to tackle Sardinia, which last year proved to be a very tough place for the cars.
The Island X Prix will take place in the same military training camp that hosted last year’s race, in which dust was an issue for the visibility of the drivers
LEGACY PROGRAMME
The Legacy Programme of the Island X Prix focuses on the carbon stores of forests and seagrasses, both threatened by global warming and human activity.
In 2021, wildfires affected 20,000 hectares of the Island of Sardinia. Last year the series promoted a restoration project and this year the drivers will visit the area to check its evolution. They will also take part in a fire prevention campaign.
Seagrass occupies only 0.2% of the ocean floor, but it stores 10% of the ocean floor and it can capture up to 30% more than rainforests. The drivers will contribute to the preservation of seagrasses together with the MEDSEA Foundation.
Quotes
Carlos Sainz, driver:
"We are really looking forward to the second and the third round of the Extreme E Championship, which will take place in Sardinia in a double-header format. We raced there last year, so we already have some experience on that terrain and we know what we will encounter. Everyone is going to have a new suspension, so it is still unknown how it will perform and how every team will work around it. We are really excited after the second place we achieved in the first round of the calendar. We will try to improve or at least match that result, so it will be important to be more consistent than last year".
Laia Sanz, driver:
"We are really looking forward to the Island X Prix. Sardinia will be a double header and therefore it will be super important for the Championship because there will be many points at stake. It will be crucial, so we must make sure that we perform well there. The tests we have done have gone really well and we are feeling good after the second place we scored in Saudi Arabia, so we are more eager than ever to get it started. We are prepared for the challenge with all the testing we have done. Surely it will be difficult because every team will have done its homework, but we are really looking forward to it and we are really hoping that Sardinia will be a good one for us".
Joan Orús, team principal:
"The Island X Prix is not a regular event, because it is a double-header race. There are four rounds still to go on the calendar and this week we will do two of them, so the points that we achieve in Sardinia will be really important to achieve our goals. These past few months we have worked really hard to adjust to the new set-up of the suspensions and we have done some testing with Carlos and Laia to be as sure as we can be about the performance of the car for this round. We are optimistic ahead of Sardinia and we want to win at least one X Prix, if not both of them".
