Extreme E’s transformation into Extreme H will make Alejandro’s Agag’s sustainable off-road odyssey a far more commercially-focused property, centring the interests of its Saudi backers and attracting new partners such as Red Bull to the sport.
Speaking to SportBusiness at the official launch of Extreme H, series founder and CEO Agag admitted that Extreme E had lacked “a unique DNA selling point” and that “it’s been tough for Extreme E to have more success commercially”.
Agag launched off-road motorsport series Extreme E in 2021, riding a surge in public support for social and environmental change. The series put climate change action and gender parity at the centre of its marketing pitch, differentiating itself from the blood, sweat and oil offered by other motorsport properties.
The switch to Extreme H will transform the series into a marketing platform for hydrogen technology, providing an exclusive opportunity for car manufacturers and motorsport teams to learn more about a technology that has been tabled as a potential future fuel source for Formula 1 by its director for motorsports Ross Brawn.
Agag said: “To go to market [with Extreme H], the selling point is hydrogen. Of course it’s a sport, so you need the sport at the heart of it because otherwise you have nothing. But the selling point, especially with this, is going to be hydrogen. You can feel it. People come and go ‘oh, it’s hydrogen, it’s new’. People like to be on the next thing, and this is the next thing.”
For Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund – Extreme E/H’s primary backer – hydrogen is very much the current thing. Saudi Arabia aims to become the world’s leading provider of hydrogen – a byproduct of processing crude oil into petroleum – and sees XH as the perfect travelling advert for its product.
Agag explains that PIF “has a double role as a shareholder of the championship but also sponsor of” XH. Neom – a Saudi giga-project with PIF funding – is also a partner of the series and is contracted to supply the hydrogen that will used from 2025 onward. Neom has been involved in XE since 2022, both as a sponsor of the McLaren team and as the host of the 2022 and 2023 editions of the Desert X-Prix in what was an alluring season-opening spot.
“We’re talking, for example, to Aramco and other companies in Saudi about the [blue] hydrogen,” Agag explained. “Neom is our partner on green hydrogen supply.”
According to Extreme E managing director Ali Russell, the move to hydrogen from electric power will bring the series closer to its Saudi partners, but also to other markets aligned with the mission.
Russell said: “There’s places like Namibia, places like Mauritania, that are all developing their hydrogen economies to go away from being importers of fossil fuels to exporters of renewable energy,” and “have the aspiration to be involved in motorsport”.
Agag believes Morocco is another country with “big potential for us” due to its interest in hydrogen power, and that each of the African nations have the potential to host races.
At present, the only seller in the XH shop window is Saudi Arabia, which is already selling refined petroleum to these nations and aspires to be the world’s largest exporter of hydrogen fuel. However, countries such as Namibia – which recently made a significant oil discovery off its coast – may need the kind of large-scale investment that Saudi can deliver to turn its luck into money.
Mauritania’s government recently signed a memorandum of understanding to work with the Saudi government on clean hydrogen product, while Morocco is widely seen as a potential rival as it ramps up its own hydrogen production.
Red Bull entry
The switch to hydrogen has also proven attractive for motorsport’s biggest financier: energy drinks company Red Bull.
The inaugural season of Extreme H in 2025 will include a Red Bull-branded entry for the first time as Extreme E pivots from electricity to hydrogen – a key selling point that convinced the energy drink manufacturer to invest in the series.
SportBusiness understands Red Bull will adorn the livery of a yet-to-be decided team next year in addition to an already-announced partnership with Extreme H as its official energy drinks partner. Acciona Sainz, the Extreme E team owned by former WRC champion Carlos Sainz Sr., is thought to be in pole position to secure that sponsorship.
Sainz’s title sponsorship deal with water treatment firm Acciona expires at the end of the season and the team is beginning to incorporate Red Bull branding across its car and team kit this year – Extreme E’s final season. Both of Sainz’s drivers were Red Bull-sponsored in 2023 – sporting Red Bull-branded racesuits and hats – but the team itself had no direct affiliation.
Sainz team manager Andrés Castillo hopes to continue its partnership with Acciona in some form, but he believes that 2025 could herald the beginning of a major new title sponsorship with motorsport’s biggest financier.
“Carlos has a very long story with Red Bull going back 25 years, and now we are together with them,” Castillo told SportBusiness. “If we are going to be the official Red Bull team next year, I don’t know it yet. I want to think that we are well positioned in that.”
Red Bull is biding its time on a final decision as the series is yet to finalise its grid for 2025. SportBusiness understands that Agag hosted an event last month to introduce the Extreme H concept to a variety of current teams and potential new entrants.
Agag told SportBusiness that the switch from electric-powered cars to hydrogen-powered cars will give the series and its constituent teams “a chance to access a complete new set of potential sponsors”.
Agag said: “I’ve been talking to Red Bull for a while, trying to bring them into any of our portfolio of [electric racing series] Formula E, XE – wherever they want to come – and they never wanted to go into battery-powered cars. But when I started talking to them about hydrogen, they immediately said ‘keep us informed of that, because that could be of interest for us’. And Red Bull, when they say something, they follow through.”
“There is a case where Red Bull are very involved in the sport in itself, and most of the drivers are Red Bull drivers. So it’s a natural continuation,” added Russell.
Reach and audience
Extreme E has focused on reach over revenue with its media strategy since its launch in 2021, and is expected to continue this trend with Extreme H from 2025. While the Saudi hydrogen strategy is broadly B2B, advertising its brand-new fuel product to a mass market will also be a priority.
Russell says Extreme E reached 150 million unique viewers in 2023 through a mix of traditional broadcast deals, live streaming across YouTube and Twitch, and a multi-platform social media strategy focused on YouTube and TikTok.
Russell says that Extreme H will “try to be on as many platforms as possible”, including Chinese websites Weibo and Youku. The addition of Red Bull as an official Extreme H partner will also benefit the series as the company’s digital presence is widely considered best-in-class.
However, securing linear exposure for the series will continue to be a tricky endeavour. In many territories, only the final of each Extreme H round is likely to be broadcast live, and the series’ knockout format means some broadcasts will be completely absent of certain teams and drivers.
Russell played down the lack of live linear exposure, describing Extreme E/H as “an evergreen product” in that “re-runs can be as big in terms of audiences as the initial showing.”
As with all sports properties in the 2020s, Extreme E has also had its own docuseries, ‘Race for the Planet’. Extreme E’s head of media rights, David Gillett, says the show will pivot away from its green-focused message in 2024 ahead of the Extreme H rebrand.
“I think ‘Race for the Planet’ as a name for it was wrong, because what you don’t want is to ram sustainability down people’s throats,” Gillett said. “It still needs to be motor racing.”
He continued: “Drive To Survive does well because of the characters and people behind the scenes. So we need to shift the focus to that. I think we’ll have a more female focus and we’ll rename it, and that will be ready to go in late December.”
Hosting and calendar
Maximising exposure for sponsors has been a challenge for Extreme E from the start, since its race locations – deserts, tundras and industrial sites – are almost always off-limits to spectators. As a result, teams have struggled to get closer to their fans and sponsors have been limited in their ability to activate their agreements and directly reach consumers.
Extreme H’s strategy will be hosting races in more accessible locations, both literally and in terms of marketisation, and incorporating advancements in technology into its broadcasts as well as its cars.
“XE had really the selling point of going far away, remote locations,” says Agag. “But XH, the selling point is hydrogen, so we don’t really have the pressure to go to these very remote locations. We can bring the championship closer. We have been doing already in some of the events. That makes it a lot easier for partners to come to the races, makes it easier for media to come to the events.”
Agag had been aware that the remote locations preferred by Extreme E were not preferred by its constituent teams. Sainz’s Castillo believes the new direction will be better for commercialisation.
“The combination of remote events and more European or other nearby events, I think it’s a good balance,” Castillo said. “It’s very difficult to get customers, sponsors, VIP guests, to very remote places. I think they spotted this and there will be a balance with some permanent events in Europe.”
Castillo believes, from the talks he has attended thus far, that two calendar slots will be rotated season-on-season so Extreme H can visit Africa and the American continents. These slots will accompany permanent rounds in Saudi Arabia and two European rounds. Castillo believes Brazil and Chile are candidate countries for a South American event.
In addition, Extreme H will condense its calendar, likely during the summer months. At present, Extreme E launches in February with an opening round in Saudi, followed by a five-month gap to the second round in Scotland.
The season-opening slot is a lucrative one for Extreme H, but handing it to Saudi Arabia – a nation which almost exclusively hosts its motorsport in winter – has produced a huge mid-season gap that hurts the series’ momentum.
“Having such a long break in the season is not good for anybody. It’s very difficult for the teams,” says Castillo. “So we [the teams] discussed with the promoter about that. They are keen to have a more compact calendar for next season, so it will be a lot better.”
He added: “For sure it’s more comfortable [to race in Saudi] in January or February. But it doesn’t matter: it’s too long [a gap]. Now people are wondering if the next race in Scotland is the first race of the season. People don’t remember the previous race because it was five months ago. So I think we all want to fix it.
“And if it is a bit too hot [in Saudi], doesn’t matter.”