Will Smith’s E1 electric speedboat team flies to top of championship rankings

Launched in Jeddah in January 2024, the E1 Series features ten teams racing the one design ‘RaceBird’ all-electric hydrofoiling speedboats at events held in top international ports and waterways. Each team is owned by a noted figure in the worlds of sport, entertainment and business and is led by a female and male pilot who compete in mixed genre races throughout the season. There are no ‘men’s races’ and ‘women’s races’, they are all on equal footing.

The goal of the series, aside from deciding ‘The Champions of the Water’, is to publicize and promote cutting-edge clean technologies while helping to protect and restore our planet’s coastal waters and ecosystems.

The series was founded by Alejandro Agag and Rodi Basso and is loosely patterned after the on-land Formula 1 and Formula E car events, where the emphasis is on the driver’s capabilities rather than throwing money at technology. In fact, Agag is a founder of the Formula E electric car racing series and Basso worked with Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and McLaren Applied Technologies.

The Racebird itself is designed by Sophie Horne of Seabird Technologies. The Sophie Horne. The 7 meter (23 ft) boat has hydrofoiling wings that lift the hull out of the water enabling speeds of up to 90 kmph (50 knots / 55 mph) using a 150 kW (200 brake horsepower) electric outboard system by Mercury Racing and Kreisel batteries.

The ten teams and are their owners are:

• Team Brady: former NFL quarterback Tom Brady
• Team Rafa: tennis legend Rafael Nadal
• 
Team Miami: multi-Grammy winner Marc Anthony
• Team Aoki: DJ / Producer Steve Aoki
• Team AlUlA: championed by basketball’s Lebron James
• Team Drogba: Ivory Coast footballer Didier Drogba
• 
Team Blue Rising: Indian cricketer Virat Kohli
• Team Sierra: Sierra Enterprises with ambassadors Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid soccer) and Kyle Kuzma (NBA basketball)
• Team Monaco: Monaco

The pilots of the boats come from a wide variety of disciplines. Many, like Sam Coleman and Emma Kimmaläinen of Team Brady, came from powerboating and motorsport racing, but Maxime Nocher of Team Monaco was a kite surfing champion; Team Drogma’s Tara Pacheco was in sailboat racing; Cris Lazarraga of Team Rafa was a jetski racer and Lucas Ordóñez of Westwood first entered real life professional racing by winning a spot in a PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo competition.

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E1 SERIES: RULES

Championship: Ten teams race over 9 weekends, with points awarded for finishing place, along with some bonus points for specific achievements. The Champions of the Water are the team that accumulates most points by the end of the season.

Events: Each event is held over two days, usually a Friday and Saturday. Qualifying time trials and races are held on Day One. Day Two has Group Races which decide two of the finalists, the Race Off to determine the other four finalists, the Place Race, and two Finals races – so both the female and male co-pilots of each team help determine the outcome.

The Finals and Place Race dictate the Championship Points awarded for each weekend.

Points Awarded: Points are awarded for each placing every weekend with the Champion having the most points at the end of the season.
1st: 38  |  2nd: 30 |  3rd: 23 |  4th: 19 |  5th: 15 |  6th: 13 |  7th: 9 |  8th:  8 |  9th: 5 |  10th: 3.

Points are also awarded for the three fastest Qualifiers: Fastest: 3  |  2nd: 2 |  3rd: 1.
One bonus point is awarded for the fastest lap of the weekend.

Qualifying: There are four Qualifying Stages with teams knocked out to establish the pole positions for Saturday’s races.

1. Qualifying Stage 1: Time Trials in which all 10 teams participate, the results ranked by average of both pilots’ best laps. Bottom 2 teams eliminated.
2. Qualifying Stage 2: Remaining 8 teams in two sessions (groups of 4). Individual timed runs in reverse order, 2 non-consecutive attempts per team. Bottom 2 teams eliminated.
3. Qualifying Stage 3: Remaining 6 teams in two sessions (groups of 3). Same format as Q1. Bottom 2 eliminated.
4. Qualifying Stage 4: Pole Shootout to determines initial Pole Positions on Race Day. Final 4 teams, single 20-minute session. Each completes 2 timed laps in inverted order. Points are awarded toward the Championship total: 3-2-1.

Saturday Racing
Group Stages: teams divided based on Qualifying results:
Group A: 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th
Group B: 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th

The top team from each group advances directly to the Finals. The bottom team from each goes to the Place Race. The teams finishing 2-3-4 in each go to the Race Off.

Race Off: Six team single race (only one pilot from each team) with the top four finishers going to the Finals and the bottom two going to the Place Race.

Place Race: Two races, one with each team’s pilot, best averaged time. Determines places 7-10 and Championship points.

Finals: Two races, one with each team’s pilot, best averaged time. Determines places 1-6 and Championship points.

SOME GENERAL RULES:

Pilots
In every stage except the Group Races and the Race Off both the female and male pilot participate in separate races to determine the winning team of each stage, alternating races throughout the weekend.

In the Finals, the finishing order for the first race determines pole position for the second.

Laps
There is not just one lap length, but three: Short, ‘Normal’ and Long. The distances are tailored to the waters and layout of each location, but are somewhere between 900 m ( ≈ .5 Nm /  .6 mi) and 1700 m ( to ≈ .91 Nm / 1.0 mi).

The Qualifying Stages are timed on one Normal lap. The Saturday Races are six laps – one of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. Penalties are usually an extra long lap within the six laps, which could add anywhere from 20 to 35 seconds to the overall race time. 

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.

General Strategy
Aside from the boosting and lap strategies, the overriding goal is to find clean water. The RaceBirds travel fastest when they are flying above the water on their foils. The boats need to be balanced both across the beam and along the length for optimum performance and waves – either natural or from the other boats – makes it tougher to stay on foil. That not only slows the pilot down but also requires extra power to get back up out of the water and onto the foils.

END OF RULES

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