Extreme E, the new series dedicated to off-road electric SUV racing, has announced the provisional schedule for its upcoming 2022 season. The biggest thing to note: It isn’t finished.
Extreme E has done something admittedly strange with this 2022 schedule. Only two of the five events are actually solidified: the season opener in Saudi Arabia and the season finale in Chile. Everything else is up for debate.
And not only that, but the final two races of this season are still up for debate. The coronavirus pandemic saw those races cancelled, with new locations needing to be found. With the next race taking place in less than a month, there’s still no guarantee where, exactly, it’ll be.
That aside, here’s the provisional 2022 schedule:
: Saudi Arabia: Senegal or Egypt or Tanzania: Greenland or Iceland: Brazil or Argentina or Uruguay or Italy or Costa Rica: Chile
The flexibility of the schedule, though, may prove to be a crucial part of Extreme E’s future. The series does seem to have located several venues where the impact of climate change has been pretty significant, but those areas are also fairly delicate. A forest fire, extreme weather, or massive deforestation projects could easily force Extreme E to stay on its toes in order to reschedule an event. But the unsettled nature of the schedule does feel a little bit strange.
“As we approach the tail end of our first Season, we wanted to be transparent about how our second season is shaping up in order to help enable our teams, drivers and partners to prepare,” Alejandro Agag, series CEO, said. “We’ve had lots of interest, both in retaining events in locations we’ve visited in Season 1, and from new locations and we are currently at a stage where we have multiple options for some of our races. As an engaged championship which aims to put fans at the heart of decision making, we are also keen to hear input and opinions on where we should go in future seasons, too.”
It’s an interesting strategy, to say the least. Let’s see how it pans out for the series in the future.