Thursday, 10th of February of 2022 – ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team confirms that its driver line-up, composed of Carlos Sainz and Laia Sanz, will remain the same for the Season 2 of the Extreme E Championship. The series will celebrate five events on four different continents and the Spanish team aims for the overall victory.
The ASXE Team clinched a podium in Extreme E’s maiden season. Both the good performance that the team showed at the end of 2021 and the experience that the drivers have gathered, especially Laia, are solid reasons to foresee an important step forward this year in the ground-breaking electric off-road championship.
The drivers of the ASXE Team are among the finest talent in the Spanish motoring ecosystem: Carlos Sainz, a two-time WRC champion and three-time Winner of the Dakar Rally, and Laia Sanz, a 14-time Trial world champion, 6-time Enduro world champion and 11-time winner of the Women’s Trophy at the Dakar Rally, among other honours.
Regarding the rest of the team, the foundations of the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will follow the same line as last year, albeit with some small changes. QEV Tech founder Joan Orús will serve as Team Principal and Andrés Castillo will be Team Manager.
The 2022 season of Extreme E will consist of five X Prix that will be held between the 19th of February and the 27th of November. The series will start in Neom, Saudi Arabia, which will host the second edition of the Desert X Prix. Sardinia will also repeat in the calendar, while (pending final confirmation) Senegal will be the third round. Later on, Extreme E will pay its first visit to South America racing both in Chile and Uruguay.
Besides the sporting side of the Championship, which gathers some of the most important names in international motorsport, Extreme E is also a pioneering series as it promotes complete gender equality between men and women in its races. It also fights climate change. The championship is carbon neutral and promotes nine environmental projects around the world with the determination to kick-start many more to create a positive impact on society during 2022.
QUOTES:
Carlos Sainz, driver:
“We are about to start Season 2 of the Extreme E Championship. It’s quite surprising how fast time flies because it seemed yesterday that we were about to embark on this thrilling adventure that has taken us all over the world with a unique message. All the members of the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team, also Laia and myself, are really looking forward to this new season in which we want to fight for everything. The experience we gained in 2021 must help us to take a step forward to start fighting for better results and even the Championship. I am really looking forward to the first X Prix in Saudi Arabia to show just how much we have progressed. The level of the Championship is really high, but we want to win and to send the strongest possible message about the importance of sustainability and respecting the environment. It makes me proud that we are doing this with a project that is entirely Spanish, so I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all the parties that make this possible for their confidence, including Santander Private Banking and Power Electronics, which will continue supporting us this year”.
Laia Sanz, driver:
“I am really looking forward to the season opener in Saudi Arabia. I think it will be a different year to 2021 because we are not starting from scratch. Now the team has experience with the Odyssey 21 and I have been able to do many kilometres on four wheels, so I am convinced that I will be able to help the team much more. In the last races of 2021, we already took a step forward in terms of performance and I think that this is promising for what is to come. This winter I was able to do my first Dakar Rally racing on cars and I believe this will also prove really positive for this Extreme E season. It is true that I still lack experience in the wheel-to-wheel fights, but I am getting used to them and I am convinced that this season will be much better for us and that we will fight for better results. The level of the Championship got much higher throughout 2021 and everything seems to suggest that this 2022 will be even tighter, so I am really looking forward to getting started”.
Joan Orús, Team Principal:
“We are delighted to be starting this second season of the Extreme E Championship. This year our ambition is to fight for victories and for the title. We believe that the evolution of the drivers has been really positive so far, and the mechanics and the engineers have understood how the Odyssey 21 works. They can offer the drivers the best possible guarantees and the possibility to be fighting for the podium in each and every race. We believe that Extreme E is a big scenario to contribute to the adoption of the electric car. This is the only racing series in the world that promotes the preservation of the environment and gender equality, and we are proud to be taking part in it with a Spanish team that this year intends to take a leap forward and to fight for everything”.
Joaquín Mollinedo, director of Institutional Relations, Sustainability and Brand in ACCIONA:
“We at ACCIONA face the second edition of Extreme E with the utmost enthusiasm. Through the ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team, we further cement our support to a new way of understanding elite motorsport, more sustainable and equal. We return together with an initiative that goes beyond sport because it will enable us to transmit to the people messages like the urgency to take action for the climate and to showcase the reliability of this new mobility, all while exposing the real impact that climate change is having on different places of the world that are currently under threat”.
Press contact:
Cristóbal Rosaleny
