Extreme E

Oct 14, 2005
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Has anyone else watched the Extreme E races on Kayo or Foxtel?

It's an interesting series. Electric off-road vehicles, similar to the buggies seen in the Dakar rally. 9 teams of 2 drivers - one male, one female. Races are 2 laps (approx 10km per lap), with each driver completing one lap, with a neutralised 45 second stop for changeovers in between.

The racing is generally good, but it's definitely not a good advertisement for electric cars. The cars' electronics crashes more often than Windows 3.1. I'm not talking about suspension failures, or flat tyres, which are part & parcel for off-road racing. I'm talking about the cars' electronics just shutting down the entire car, requiring a system reboot before the car can get moving again. For example, multiple cars shutdown under heavy braking, as the cars slowed before entering the changeover zone - no contact, no physical damage to the car, the electronics just shutdown.
 
Aug 17, 2007
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Has anyone else watched the Extreme E races on Kayo or Foxtel?

It's an interesting series. Electric off-road vehicles, similar to the buggies seen in the Dakar rally. 9 teams of 2 drivers - one male, one female. Races are 2 laps (approx 10km per lap), with each driver completing one lap, with a neutralised 45 second stop for changeovers in between.

The racing is generally good, but it's definitely not a good advertisement for electric cars. The cars' electronics crashes more often than Windows 3.1. I'm not talking about suspension failures, or flat tyres, which are part & parcel for off-road racing. I'm talking about the cars' electronics just shutting down the entire car, requiring a system reboot before the car can get moving again. For example, multiple cars shutdown under heavy braking, as the cars slowed before entering the changeover zone - no contact, no physical damage to the car, the electronics just shutdown.
Is it sponsored by an oil company?

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Oct 14, 2005
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Is it sponsored by an oil company?
The full broadcast is chockas with environmental messaging, and they deliberately race in countries which are supposedly severely impacted by the results of Climate Change. I fast forward through the bloat, only watching the racing, but I'm sure there's someone out there who watched the environmental propaganda.

The first 3 rounds were Saudi Arabia (Desert XPrix), Senegal (Ocean XPrix), and Greenland (Arctic XPrix). The 4th race was to be in Brazil, but has now been moved to Italy (Sicily). The 5th race is currently TBA. They were originally supposed to be racing in Nepal, Argentina & Brazil, but those races have been cancelled or moved, due to COVID.
  • The Saudi Arabia leg wasn't a great success, as dust made racing almost impossible. The cars raced to the first turn, then the leaders drove away, as the others had to back right off in the choking dust. This leg was ideal for time trial racing, but hopeless for head-to-head.
  • The Senegal leg was done at Lac Rose, which (from memory) was where the Dakar Rally used to do the ceremonial final stage, before crossing the finish line.
  • The Greenland leg was mostly in a river bed, below a glacier. My guess is that the river bed where they were racing was probably under ice, not that long ago. It was easily the best head-to-head racing of the 3 stages so far, with multiple lines possible over large sections of the track. The drivers even had to contend with rain, which was almost unheard of in Greenland, until very recently (it was previously too cold for rain), perfectly illustrating the Climate Change agenda behind the series' inception.
The current championship leading team is (Australian Rally Champion) Molly Taylor & (World Rally Cross Champion) Johan Kristofferson. Molly is clearly the fastest of the female drivers, and quicker than most of the men too. Kristofferson appears to be the fastest male driver, making them almost unbeatable when the car doesn't let them down. Their team won the first 2 races, and was leading the Final of the 3rd when their car suffered the dreaded BSOD after a big jump.
 
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Oct 14, 2005
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Does formula E have the same electronic issues or is it due to the rough off road nature?
Don't know - I've only watched one race.

I think it's just a matter of the buggies they're using not being very well built. It's a single-model category, and the BSOD problems afflicted about half the teams during the Greenland leg, at one time or another.
 
Aug 14, 2011
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The current championship leading team is (Australian Rally Champion) Molly Taylor & (World Rally Cross Champion) Johan Kristofferson. Molly is clearly the fastest of the female drivers, and quicker than most of the men too. Kristofferson appears to be the fastest male driver, making them almost unbeatable when the car doesn't let them down. Their team won the first 2 races, and was leading the Final of the 3rd when their car suffered the dreaded BSOD after a big jump.

They have kicked on & won the series in the team owned by Nico Rosberg.
When you stand on the podium next to the likes of Nico, its great for Aus motorsport:


Molly Taylor celebrates with Johan Kristoffersson (left) and Nico Rosberg. Picture: James Bearne/Getty Images

RXR founder and chief executive Rosberg said he was “so proud” of Taylor and Kristoffersson.

“The team has worked so hard all season and performed consistently,” he said.

“We came into Extreme E to raise awareness of climate change and promote sustainability, but also as a racing team, we want to win and so we will remember this feeling forever.”

 
Aug 14, 2011
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Molly was comfortably the best of the female drivers, and her partner (Kristoffersson) was 2nd best only to Sebastien Loeb.

There's something wrong with the points system, if they only won on countback despite winning 3 of the 5 rounds.

:thumbsu:.
I've not watched it, hopefully I can find it on Fox.
 
Oct 14, 2005
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:thumbsu:.
I've not watched it, hopefully I can find it on Fox.
It's on Kayo, though you need to search for it - it's not listed as a category of its own.

The scoring issue relates to the points available for qualifying, but more so the "traction challenge". Fastest through the "traction challenge" section gets 5pts, regardless of whether that occurs in qualifying, semi finals, or the final. Given that 1st only gets 25pts, with 19pts for 2nd, the points for the "traction challenge" are way too high.
 
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