The ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will visit this season the island of Sardinia, home to a new round of Extreme E, the new electric off-road motorracing series. It will take place on the 23rd and the 24th of October.
Extreme E announced today that it has reached an agreement in principle with Sardinian officials to host the fourth event of its opening season from 23-24 October.
The move to the Italian island follows the series’ decision to postpone its originally planned events in Brazil and Argentina due to the ongoing COVID-19 situation in Latin America.
Alejandro Agag, Founder and CEO of Extreme E, said: "I am pleased to confirm that Extreme E is finalising plans to race in Sardinia, Italy, and that we are delighted to have the support of Sardinian president Christian Solinas, and the Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI) as we plan our first European event."
"Extreme E was built around the ethos of racing electric vehicles in remote environments in an effort to raise awareness for climate change issues and showcase the performance and benefits of low carbon vehicles. However, this crisis is not a problem which only affects remote locations. It is becoming increasingly noticeable closer to home, across North America, and here across Europe, with rising temperatures, heatwaves and wildfires, which currently rage in Sardinia itself, being some of the latest devastating examples. "
"Together with our supportive hosts and our Scientific Committee and Partners, we will use the power of sport to educate on the causes of these climate issues which are taking place right here in front of us, as we aim to open eyes even wider to the need for all of us to take collective action, now, before it’s too late."
Sardinian president Christian Solinas confirmed the news, saying: "An agreement between Sardinia, the president of ACI, Angelo Sticchi Damiani, and the promoter, Alejandro Agag, to bring an Extreme E racing event to Sardinia is being defined, an appointment in which the Region will work alongside the organisers for the success of the event."
Richard Washington, Professor of Climate Science at the University of Oxford, and founding member of Extreme E’s Scientific Committee, explains: "Rising temperatures and wildfires are now a threat across every continent. In just the last couple of years we have seen devastation in the Amazon, Australia, Siberia, Canada and the Mediterranean region. With thresholds already crossed by climate change, wildfires are more extensive, more intense, more damaging and last longer. New ways of forecasting wildfires and new ways of adapting to them are urgently needed."
"Ultimately, the driver of all this is climate change. To reduce the devastation, we need to stem the driver of that change and that means cutting carbon emissions. Continue to live as we do, and the carbon emissions by the end of the century will make the wildfires of recent years look modest. Extreme E is at the forefront of the drive towards a better future, a new way of doing things and a world which does not rely on deadly carbon emissions."
Angelo Sticchi Damiani, President of Automobile Club d’Italia (ACI) said: "The ability to look to the future and to design or support new initiatives that have an important horizon both from a technical evolution and from a sporting spectacle perspective, has always been in the DNA of the Automobile Club d’Italia, which since its inception has been the "engine" of motorsport, anticipating motorsport trends and developments over the years."
"In this broad context, the ACI, the Region of Sardinia and Alejandro Agag are working together on an agreement to host an Extreme E event. A championship for off-road cars conceived by the FIA International Automobile Federation and dedicated exclusively to electric SUVs , which will take place in Sardinia on 23 and 24 October 2021. As usual, ACI has played a fundamental role in the birth of this event and will follow it by supporting in its development."
