Extreme E reveals plans for 2022 season
Extreme E has revealed a near-finalised calendar for its second season in 2022.
The all-electric SUV off-road racing championship did issue a provisional schedule back in September, which featured no fewer than 12 countries to fill the five-round campaign.
But Motorsport.com understands this oversubscription was a deliberate move to encourage host venues to compete against one another to wheedle out the highest bidder.
Now, it has been whittled back to six locations with only one round that is ‘to be confirmed’.
The campaign will kick off on 19-20 February in Neom, Saudi Arabia.
While this retains Saudi as the first round, as per the inaugural 2021 calendar, the location has moved from the AlUla desert to the Neom - famous for the straight-line city project.
As previously reported by Motorsport.com, there has been a push to promote the $500 billion Neom project with it hosting a leg of the 2021 Dakar Rally and holding talks with Formula E.
[
There is also less of a desire to return to AlUla following complaints of the limited visibility created by the desert dust that negatively impacted overtaking.
Motorsport.com understands that Extreme E co-founder Alejandro Agag was in Saudi last weekend, flying back for the final day of the Jurassic X-Prix, to negotiate alternative dates should further travel restrictions come into place.
A return to Sardinia on 7-8 May makes up round two, with series officials keen to retain a European round following the media interest and greater capacity for guests when the Italian island was drafted in to replace a Brazilian round cancelled by COVID in October.
There is currently no final location for round three, 9-10 July, with both Scotland and Senegal listed.
The Dakar beach in Senegal hosted the second-ever Extreme E event in May but Scotland has been thrust into contention following a £1 million grant from UK chancellor Rishi Sunak in his most recent budget.
While the proposed location in the Outer Hebrides could offer a solution to further travel restrictions, Autosport understands that limited hotel capacity and other infrastructure headaches stand as the biggest detractor at present.
The calendar then concludes with a mini-South American leg as Chile has been added to the billing across 10-11 September.
Antofagasta is down as the host venue, with the London Stock Exchange-listed Antofagasta Minerals having been a backer of the Santiago E-Prix Formula E round since February 2018.
The season finale is set to be held in Punta del Este, Uruguay over 26-27 November - which again has ties to effective sister series Formula E.
It hosted the third-ever race of the single-seater championship and continued on the calendar in 2015-16 and 2017-18.
Agag said: “After a spectacular opening season, we are thrilled to be in a place where we can announce our season two calendar.
“All of us here at Extreme E are looking forward to revisiting some of the amazing race locations from the 2021 season to see for ourselves the positive impact our electric series has had and to see what more we can bring to the communities there.
“We also very much hope to add South America to our list of continents, and with visits to both Chile and Uruguay planned, it is shaping up to be another exciting season.”
From the original list of 12, Egypt, Tanzania, Greenland, Iceland, Brazil, Argentina and Costa Rica have been dropped.
2022 Extreme E calendar
19-20 February Neom, Saudi Arabia
7-8 May Sardinia, Italy
9-10 July Scotland or Senegal
10-11 September Antofagasta, Chile
26-27 November Punta del Este, Uruguay
Related video
Fine margins combine to decide finalists at Jurassic X-Prix
Veloce replaces Chadwick with Giampaoli Zonca in Extreme E line-up
How XE's Arctic adventure gave a chilly reminder of the fixes to find
Extreme E’s third round provided the very definition of extreme conditions in the Arctic Circle, and despite settling on a successful format and Andretti United taking a maiden win, there remains plenty of work to do with the spec cars that froze in action
Why McLaren’s surprise electric path can benefit everyone involved
McLaren's announcement that it will enter the Extreme E series for electric SUVs next year came as something of a surprise. But it brings benefits that other championships it could seek to enter cannot, while providing a timely boost to a start-up that has had to cancel two of its South American rounds.
Why Extreme E's Senegal round hints at the series' true potential
Extreme E's second round on the sands of Senegal refined some the more clunky aspects of the series' debut event in Saudi Arabia. Even though its star-studded finale between Lewis Hamilton's X44 team and Rosberg X Racing proved anticlimactic, the pieces are in place for the series to only get better
How Extreme E exceeded expectations to pass its first major test
The racing may have lacked the explosive conclusion to Formula E's first race in 2014 and was not without its hiccups. But Extreme E's leap into the unknown appears to have paid off, delivering a spectacle quite unlike anything else
Extreme E: The team-by-team guide
The world’s newest motorsport discipline is set to go racing for the first time this weekend. Extreme E’s innovations and plans have raised some eyebrows, but it also provides an exciting list of competitors and teams for the inaugural campaign
How Extreme E’s charging solution could transform motorsport
The new off-road SUV series aims to go boldly into the unknown on several fronts, but perhaps its most significant measure will involve the energy source powering its fleet of cars
How XE's star power puts Formula E under pressure
With the addition of Jenson Button's own team to join the involvement of fellow Formula 1 champions Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg in Extreme E's ranks, the new electric SUV series is brimming with star power to enable it to deliver on its promise
Driving the electric beast behind XE’s off-road eco-crusade
In October, Motorsport.com headed to the South of France to sample the Odyssey 21 - the titanic 550bhp machine underpinning Alejandro Agag's latest electric venture. But for such a big beast, it's a nimble machine that should provide spectacular entertainment…