- The penultimate round of the Extreme E Championship takes place this weekend in Antofagasta, nearby several mining projects in the Atacama Desert.
The ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team travels to Chile to take part in the Copper X Prix, the first Extreme E event to take place in South America.
Both Laia Sanz and Carlos Sainz know Chile well, given that they visited the country on numerous occasions this past decade while racing in the Dakar Rally.
Nevertheless, their vast racing knowledge will not be an advantage this time given that the organizers haven’t unveiled the layout of the circuit yet. On top of that, some of their rivals have also raced in the Atacama Desert in the past.
In the Copper X Prix, the team will race with the same chassis it used in the Island X Prix II after the heavy incident of the first Final. This new chassis used to belong to the organization. The team has been granted special permission to work earlier than expected in the new car in order to switch the parts of the older chassis to the new one.
The ASXE Team is running third in the Championship and has qualified for each and every Final so far this season. Its second place in Saudi Arabia confirmed it was one of the teams with the most potential, as was later ratified in Sardinia despite several external factors –a crash of a rival in the first X Prix and a rock on the second one–.
The Copper X Prix will demonstrate yet another big advantage of electric mobility because the Odyssey 21 will not lose any power despite racing at an altitude above 2,200 meters. An ICE car would lose nearly 20% of its power due to the thinner air, but given that Extreme E uses an electric off-road vehicle this is not an issue at all.
LEGACY PROGRAMME
The Copper X Prix will put the emphasis on the urgency to develop a more sustainable mining industry. In fact, three of the biggest copper mines in the world are within 50 kilometres of the track. This is where the name of the event comes from.
Extreme E will work together with the Museo de Historia Natural y Cultural del Desierto de Atacama on a project for the conservation of the Loa water frog, a critically endangered species.
The destruction done by the mining industry affected heavily this little animal, to the point where there were only 62 left in 2014. 14 of them were taken to the Centro de Reproducción de Anfibios Nativos of the Zoológico Nacional de Chile for their conservation and reintroduction in the wilderness.
The drivers of the ASXE Team will also host a group of kids from a local school that will visit the track to discover the secrets of Extreme E.
Quotes:
Carlos Sainz, driver:
"The race in Chile will be important for ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team as an individual event but also in the bigger picture for the final stages of the championship because there are only two events to go in the calendar. We are travelling to a different continent and we visit South America for the very first time. I have fond memories of my time there with the World Rally Championship and the Rally Dakar and I am sure that Extreme E will also receive a warm welcome. It will be an excellent race. I am already looking forward to discovering the terrain where we will be racing and I want to see what challenges the track entails".
Laia Sanz, driver:
"Both Carlos and I are really looking forward to the Copper X Prix because we were really competitive in Sardinia but we were not able to translate our potential into a good result. I am optimistic and I think that we can stand out in Chile because in the last events we have had the pace to fight for everything. I am convinced that we will keep that same level in what remains of this season. We will work flat-out to do so".
Joan Orús, Team Principal:
"Each time that we are out there on track we prove that we are one of the strongest teams in the Championship and our goal for the Copper X Prix can only be to fight for our first victory in Extreme E. In Sardinia, we had a good chance, but another car hit us in the Final of the first event and this compromised our week. We have been working really hard these past two months and a part of our team received the approval to work in advance to fine-tune the rapid chassis change that we had to do in Sardinia in order to race there. All in all, the spirits in the team couldn’t be higher and we expect great things in Chile".
