Written by William Stephens, Edited by Apostolos Papageorgiou
After a severe calendar delay, Extreme E finally got going again at the recent island X Prix I & II with both showing off the new suspension elements, meaning the drivers can now push the car past its old limit. This and the natural layout of the track meant that the cars were able to follow as closely as ever, providing us with extreme racing across the Sardinian landscape.
The first of these battles comes from defending champion Rosberg X Racing (RXR) and Andretti United, which started on the opening lap of the semi-final for the first island X Prix with the RXR car getting airborne and taking some undergrowth with it. Meanwhile the Xite Energy car got in between, forcing Timmy Hansen in the Andretti United car to take an alternate wider line, which gave him almost enough momentum on exit to take first. They continued nose to tail for most of the lap until Hanssen took a wider line into a tight left and got the move done, which would see them stay in that order until the switch zone.
Another noticeable battle was the three-way fight between Johan Kristoffersson, Sebastian Loeb and Kevin Hanssen. All three followed each other closely throughout the lap, with Loeb sticking to the back of Kristoffersson despite the dust and other difficulties in following, providing great action from each car even with very few overtakes from those racing.
While there was plenty of racing action, it would be impossible to highlight it all, so here’s one final battle containing Veloce’s Lance Woolridge and Andretti United's Catie Munnings in the second island x Prix crazy race. Woolridge took the less favourable right lane and approaching the narrow bottleneck, was just behind Munnings, even having a little contact, the Veloce machine finding the undergrowth but not losing much time, he quickly got back on the Odyssey's tail and attacked Catie Munnings. In a last-ditch effort, Woolridge sent it harder over a jump in the latter section of the course in the hope of a potential overtake, only to end up with contact and into a spin, putting an end to the incredible battle.
Extreme E returns next for the Copper X Prix on the 24th and 25th of September in Chile, where we can expect even more action from the teams and drivers as they push the limits of the Odyssey 21 and themselves.
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