How XE's star power puts Formula E under pressure

It's remarkable that the maiden season of Extreme E will feature three Formula 1 world champions thanks to the involvement of Messrs Lewis Hamilton, Nico Rosberg and now Jenson Button.

Only when Hamilton renews his Mercedes contract for 2021 will F1 itself surpass the title-winning headcount, with the returning Fernando Alonso ranking alongside Sebastian Vettel and Kimi Raikkonen. As statements go, it's an astonishing feat for XE and comes all before an electric motor has whirred in anger.

Of course, Hamilton and his former Silver Arrows sparring partner Rosberg won't actually race in XE. They're both team owners and even then, will manage the day-to-day operations of their respective X44 and Rosberg Xtreme Racing squads at arm's length.

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That means it's the news that Button will actually drive for his own JBXE operation that represents the biggest coup of the lot for Alejandro Agag and his battery-powered off-road racing championship.

And thanks to Button's relationship with the media and XE's broadcast rights deals, the announcement gained a slot on the Sky Sports and BBC Sport website homepages on a day when Chelsea sacked Frank Lampard. Very rarely does any other motorsport category outside of F1 enjoy that kind of exposure from non-specialist titles, even if commercial ties were at play in XE's favour.

It's not all been sweetness and light for XE up to this point. Legal action is threatened over intellectual property and naming rights. There's been the quiet withdrawal of Venturi Racing, the first team to commit to the championship, and HWA Racelab, largely down to the current economic turmoil. The pandemic has also forced the maiden round to move continent and be delayed twice.

But still, the positive headlines have landed thick and fast for XE ahead of the first event in Saudi Arabia across 3-4 April. That straight away puts pressure on its EV counterpart.

By virtue of the two being powered by electricity, comparisons between XE and Formula E are inevitable. The relationship goes further than a shared system of propulsion. FE has a minority investment in XE and, in non-working-from-home times, the two share an office wall in Hammersmith. Many names on the payroll are shared between the pair. And while FE is not exactly an old hand - it's about to embark on only its seventh season - XE is already addressing a key issue that's created a disquiet among FE teams: media exposure.

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Annual team budgets have quadrupled up to around £40million in FE's short history. That's why some form of cost cap is necessary and must come on top of changes already made to powertrain homologation cycles - effectively ensuring a car lasts for two years - and the restrictions on consumables to further slash spending.

While XE teams have been able to ride the crest of a media wave, their FE counterparts have instead issued public statements confirming their commitment to remain in the championship after Audi and BMW voted with their feet

Now exaggerated by recent events, manufacturers are questioning whether they're getting value for money. That's particularly pertinent when it comes to the media limelight FE garners, or lack thereof.

Reading too much into a press release comes with a health warning. But when the deal for Button to join XE was announced, Agag said: "I'm thrilled to welcome another major name in the world of motorsport in Jenson Button. He is one of the most popular drivers in the business and Extreme E will give him the opportunity to live out one of his long-held passions, to compete at the highest level in off-road racing.

"Jenson, alongside his peers, will give further weight to our mission to raise awareness of the global climate crisis, while doing what we love - racing. It's going to be fantastic to see the biggest names in motorsport on the starting line in Saudi Arabia in April - it is set to be an incredible form of entertainment, but with a strong and purposeful message around our planet."

A "major name", "most popular", adding "further weight", "biggest names in motorsport" - those soundbites all reinforce the same point: XE is gunning for repeated and weighty good-news stories that have a sizeable audience.

Contrast that to FE, which has had to face the announcements that Audi and BMW will leave the series at the end of this season. It's also had to postpone four races (two in Santiago, plus the Mexico City and Sanya events) all before the new term has kicked off. Cue the schadenfreude from sceptics who never liked the series in the first place.

While XE teams have been able to ride the crest of a media wave, their FE counterparts have instead issued public statements confirming their commitment to remain in the championship after Audi and BMW voted with their feet.

PLUS: Why BMW and Audi have pulled the plug on Formula E

This column isn't an exercise in kicking FE while it's down. It's more a case of highlighting how XE is learning from one of the areas of current plight faced by its next-door neighbour.

As Agag told Autosport, he went to Hamilton and his people to initiate a conversation about joining XE; Hamilton didn't come to him. There's no shame in admitting that. Given that the X44 team is only around 900 Twitter followers down on XE as a whole (19.8k plays 20.7k), it shows how much exposure one F1 world champion, let alone three, can offer to this fledging motorsport series.

Indeed, FE has attracted its own F1 world champion in the past. King of 1997, Jacques Villeneuve joined the Venturi squad for the first three rounds of the 2015-16 season. With the team facing powertrain struggles, he soon departed with a 14th, 11th and a DNS to his name. Since then, and with Venturi also waving farewell to Felipe Massa at the end of the most recent campaign, FE has moved beyond being a shelter for ageing grand prix stars.

It's what XE possesses over FE that's made it so appealing to many more current pukka names. Both are electric motorsport series and can be used by manufacturers to develop and, more so, promote electric vehicle technology for the road. But it's been super conspicuous in all of the XE press releases just how many words have been dedicated to quotes from Hamilton, Rosberg and Button talking up the appeal of being involved in the Legacy programmes - XE will initiate local environment-benefiting projects in each of the five countries it visits in the first season.

Kimmo Liimatainen is the team principal of Rosberg Xtreme Racing. He drove for Keke Rosberg's German Formula 3 squad in 2002 and, incidentally, finished third in the 1995 Formula A World Karting Championship behind Button and champion Gastao Fraguas. He explains to Autosport why XE has been able to confirm so many high-profile names.

"I lost the [karting] title on the second-last lap. There's still something bothering me, so I'd like to give payback in Extreme E," he jokes about news of Button's arrival. "[XE] is something extraordinary that hasn't been done before. There are so many elements to it.

"The fact that you have an electric vehicle, yes Formula E is already existing. But you have an SUV, a bit of a rallycross element, the female-male driver element. They're interesting things. On top of that, the climate change issue. It is the first sport to be born out of social purpose. That's a very important part of it."

Ian Davies, team manager for Veloce Racing, which includes Jean-Eric Vergne and Adrian Newey in its set-up, shares the sentiment. "It's the vehicle for change. I'm 49 years of age, I've been in the business a long time, and I just think that the time is right.

"Our eyes were opened a little bit by Formula E, and it took a while for that to take off. It was ahead of its time, but Extreme E is the time. Certainly, especially with COVID, people realise how precious our time on this earth is. The environmental aspect of it comes to the fore.

Electric cars as an entity represent disruptive technology. Now, XE could very well become a disruptor in among the disruptive

"Being a champion of the environment, we're not just planting trees to cover the carbon, we're doing real things. People go 'you know what, this is the right thing to be doing in motorsport'. It's attracting people, there's a reflection here, people think they can make a difference.

"All the carbon we may have burned and all the rubber we may have done, maybe it's time that motorsport put that right. I believe that's what will make this championship successful."

XE's pursuit of major names and its Legacy projects go hand in glove. Agag and his colleagues have been right to be front-footed and pursue announcements worthy of coverage in the mass media. It draws more exposure to a championship and in turn promotes the sustainability aspect. Equally, the sustainability aspect attracts the names that create the big news stories.

And since the standardised ODYSSEY 21 XE car's powertrain will be very familiar to those working in FE, when the XE rules open up, and amid the SUV boom, it may very well even draw manufacturers away from its sister series if XE is seen as a better prospect by the OEMs' marketing heads.

That's all in the future, albeit not necessarily too far away. But for now, XE is enjoying the sort of launch that the instant acceleration of an electric drivetrain provides. It's matching torque with talk.

And Button aside, the roll call of XE drivers includes Sebastien Loeb, Carlos Sainz Sr, Mattias Ekstrom, Jamie Chadwick and Johan Kristoffersson. Outside of the cockpit, Chip Ganassi, General Motors, the Volkswagen Group, Newey and Vergne all have an association with the championship. It's a formidable line-up awash with kudos.

Electric cars as an entity represent disruptive technology. Now, XE could very well become a disruptor in among the disruptive. It's putting pressure on FE in its own way. And, for the minds behind the nascent SuperCharge electric series and the hydrogen-powered Hyraze - to name but two alternatively fuelled championships in the pipeline - they face an unenviable task to create quite so much hype around their arrival.