New first time winner in Monaco E1 electric speedboat races
Monaco, one of the highlight locations for the inaugural season of the E1 Series electric speedboat races, welcomed the event back on July 19. The overall championship standings were tightening at the top of the leaderboard as the celebrity owners of the teams gathered to watch the races amidst the glamor of the Riviera.
The E1 Series features nine teams owned by renowned figures from the worlds of sport, entertainment and commerce. Monaco is the fourth race of seven and the teams of tennis legend Rafael Nadal, DJ Steve Aoki and NFL superstar Tom Brady held the top three spots coming in.
Only 21 points separated those teams, and nipping at their heels (or sterns) were teams owned by Indian cricketing hero Virat Kohli (49 back) and actor Will Smith (59 back). With three race weekends to go and 38 points awarded to the winners of each leg (30 to second place, 24 to third, etc.), Monaco held the promise of being a potential turning point for the overall championship. An weekend and surprising finish has thing now even tighter.
See Plugboats coverage of all races in the E1 Series 2025 Championship:
Jeddah Doha Dubrovnik Maggiore Lagos Miami
Monaco perfect for stars, speed, sustainability
A friendly rivalry is building between the team owners and most of them – Nadal, Brady, NBA legend LeBron James (Team AlUla), African football hero Didier Drogba (Team Drogba) multiple Grammy Award winner Marc Anthony (Team Miami) and mega-entrepreneur Marcelo Claure (Team Brazil) kidded each other good-naturedly through the weekend events.
Monaco is a fitting host for the E1 Series and its mission to leverage the excitement of boat racing to promote and accelerate sustainable innovation in marine mobility. On the racing side, the first international motor-boat races for the unlimited power class were held in Monaco in 1909 and on the sustainable innovation side the hosting Yacht Club de Monaco recently held its 12th annual Monaco Energy Boat Challenge in which university teams from around the world race zero-emission vessels as they develop and showcase the latest green marine technologies.
His Serene Highness Prince Albert II is President of the YCM, a long-time champion of marine sustainability through his FPA2 marine environment foundation and a driving force in making both the Club and the Principality itself a hub for eco-responsible yachting.
During the race weekend E1 founder and Chief Executive Officer Rodi Basso and technology incubator MonacoTech invited three promising local start-ups that focus on the Blue Economy and marine electrification to showcase their work to the E1 Ocean Club VIP audience as part of the Championship’s thought leadership Blue Impact Dialogues.
The Races – Qualifying ends with red flag
The E1 Series is run over 2 days, with qualifying time trials on Friday morning and a qualifying race to end the day and decide initial pole positions for Saturday’s playdowns, playoffs and finals.
Each team has a male and female pilot who rotate in the races throughout the weekend – there is no ‘female race’ and ‘male race’. The hydrofoiling boats are ‘Racebirds’, one design models with identical specs and equipment, as in Formula 1 and Formula E car racing. They each weigh 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) and have a 150 kW (205 hp) electric outboard from Mercury Racing.
Teams
There are 9 teams, each made up of a female and male pilot, but this is not constructed as a female event and a male event, the pilots alternate throughout the event, with their results and times combined to decide the pole positions, winners of each leg, final standings and championship points.
The teams are owned by global stars of sports, entertainment and business like DJ Aoki, tennis legend Rafa Nadal, NFL GOAT Tom Brady, actor Will Smith, singer/producer Mark Anthony and Brazilian entrepreneur Marcelo Claure.
The events take place over two days. Friday is made up of time trials followed by two Qualifying Races. Saturday has four Group Races, one Race Off, one Place Race and two Finals Races.
Friday
Time Trials
In the Time Trials, the teams are split into a group of 5 and a group of 4. The male or female pilot in each group has three timed laps, followed by their opposite sex teammate taking another three timed laps.
Qualifying Races
The best times of each team’s female and male pilot are added to determine the team results 1-9 with the teams finishing 6-7-8-9 going into Qualifying Race 1 and the teams finishing 1-2-3-4 going into Qualifying Race 2.
The Qualifying Races consist of five laps and the results determine the pole positions for Saturday’s Group Races.
Saturday
Group Races
The teams finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th coming out of the Qualifying Races start off the first Group Race going against the teams finishing 8th and 9th. The second race has the first place finisher going against 5, 6 and 7. THEN, the races are done again with the opposite sex teammates. (Four Group Races in all: Group 1 Stage A, Group 2 Stage A, Group 1 Srage B and Group 2 Stage B)). Each race is 6 laps and has to include 1 long lap and 1 short lap (see ‘Laps’ below).
The teams with the fastest times in each of the Groups get a bye into the Finals held later in the day. The teams with the slowest times in each of the Groups go into the Place Race.
Race Off
To determine the other 3 contestants in the Finals and the other 2 contestants in the Place Race, there is a Race Off between the 2-3 finishers of Group 1 and the 2-3-4 finishers of Group 2.
The three top finishers of the Race Off go to the finals and the two bottom place finishers go to the Place Race. (NOTE: The Race Off and the Place Race are the only two events where both sexes don’t compete, there is just one race.)
Finals Races
The Finals has two races with the two winners of the Group Races having pole position 1 and 2 and the other positions set according to results of the Race Off.
There are a couple of twists!
Laps
There is not just one lap length, but three: Short (1150 m / 62 Nm / .71 mi), ‘Normal’ (1469 m / .8 Nm / .91 mi) and Long (1687 m / .91 Nm / 1.0 mi).
The Time Trials are 1 Normal lap. The Qualifying Races are 6 Normal laps. The Group Races are 6 laps – 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Race Off and Place Race are 5 laps, 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Finals are like the Group Race – 6 laps including 1 long and 1 short.
Boosts
Then there are the boosts. Pilots are allowed to draw extra energy out of the battery – for bursts of speed up to 20 seconds. The catch is that the time it takes to prepare for another boost is twice as long as the boost itself. So, if a pilot takes a boost for 10 seconds they will have to wait for 20 seconds before they can take another. Between the lap lengths and the boosts, there is a LOT of strategy involved, and the pilots are in constant contact with ‘Mission Control’ back at the dock.
Points
Points are awarded for final results of each weekend: 1 – 38 pts; 2 – 30 pts; 3 – 24 pts; 4 – 19 pts; 5 – 15 pts; 6 – 12 pts; 7 – 9 pts; 8 – 7 pts.
Points are also awarded for the three Pole Positions after the Qualifying Races: 1 – 3 pts; 2 – 2 pts; 3 – 1 pt. And there is a single point available for fastest lap of the weekend.
Fortunately, there was no damage to any of the pilots, but the race had to be called (the first time in the Championship history that qualifying has ended prematurely with a red flag) and the damage to the Rafa craft was significant enough that a new Racebird took part in the Saturday competitions.
Speaking after the incident in Monaco, Rafael Nadal reacted to the crash saying, “It was scary. Seeing it in real-time, I was worried for Tom. From the sidelines it looked dangerous. The main thing is he’s okay, he’s healthy. Everything else doesn’t matter when you go through something like this.”
Team Rafa’s luck did not improve, though, as they placed in the bottom two of the morning Group Races and were relegated to the afternoon’s Place Race, along with Team Drogba.
Team Brady and Team Blue Rising were the winners of the Group stage, earning byes to the finals. The five remaining teams – Aoki, AluLa, Westbrook, Brazil and Miami went into the Race Off – where the top three go to the finals and the bottom two to the Place Race.
Team Blue Rising lives up to its name
In the Race Off both the Aoki and Brazil teams jumped the starting line and received penalties requiring them to do a long lap – which adds about 200 meters (about 1/8 of a mile) and 10 or more seconds to the race times. Brazil was able to overcome the punishment and place second, but Aoki was out of the top three and went to the Place Race. It was a surprising result for the DJ/Producer’s team, as they won both the Jeddah and Dubrovski races, but have been plagued by false starts and other miscalculations in Lago Maggiore and now Monaco.
If Aoki is having their troubles, Team Blue Rising is the opposite case and the’Rising’ part of their name is increasingly accurate. After placing third in the Jeddah season opener, they placed 6th and 5th in Doha and Dubrovski, then 3rd in Maggiore.
In Monaco, they proved too strong for the competition and grabbed their first ever number one spot, securing a surprise win after Team Brady’s dominance in the earlier racing sessions. Brady was second and Team Brazil third.
While Team Rafa did not have a good weekend by any count, the points they built up previously by consistently placing in the top three is standing them in good stead, as they stand just one point behind leader Team Brady (last year’s Champion.) Team Blue Rising is now firmly in contention only 21 points behind Brady and Team Aoki is only 10 points away from the championship lead even after two disappointing weeks.
Next up, Lagos, Nigeria on October 4 and 5. It should be very interesting!
2025 E1 Championship: Standings after Race 5, Monaco
| PLC | TEAM | OWNER | FEMALE | MALE | PTS |
| 1 | Team Brady | Tom Brady | Emma Kimiläinen | Sam Coleman | 135 |
| 2 | Team Rafa | Rafael Nadal | Cris Lazarraga | Tom Chiappe | 134 |
| 3 | Team Aoki | Steve Aoki | Mashael Alobaidan | Dani Clos | 125 |
| 4 | Team Blue Rising | Virat Kohli | Sara Misir | John Peeters | 114 |
| 5 | Westbrook Racing | Will Smith | Sara Price | Lucas Ordóñez | 81 |
| 6 | Team AlUla | Championed by LeBron James | Catie Munnings | Rusty Wyatt | 79 |
| 7 | Team Drogba | Didier Drogba | Oban Duncan | Micah Wilkinson |
66 |
| 8 | Team Brazil by Claure Group | Marcelo Claure | Marit Stromoy | Timmy Hansen | 48 |
| 9 | Team Miami powered by Magnus | Marc Anthony | Anna Glennon | Erik Stark | 32 |
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