Saltwater, high-voltage electronics, and extreme speeds might sound like a recipe for disaster.
But at the UIM E1 World Championship, these ingredients come together with spectacular results.
Dubbed the ‘Formula One of the Sea’, this fast-growing sport has already attracted the backing of celebrity team owners from Will Smith and Steve Aoki to Tom Brady and LeBron James.
Across seven stages around the world, nine teams battle it out on the water in head-to-head races in custom-built ‘racebird’ speedboats.
Daring pilots must juggle tactics and high-stakes manoeuvres, while strapped in with a 6,000-volt engine travelling at speeds of up to 50 knots.
However, just like Formula One, claiming a spot on the podium takes a lot more than good driving.
From the team principles who carefully formulate the winning strategy to the engineers who keep these innovative machines running, the real race begins long before the boat touches the water.
In Doha, Qatar, MailOnline went behind the scenes of E1’s second season to find out how this new sport is taking the world by storm.
The UIM E1 World Cup, dubbed the ‘Formula One’ of the sea, is the world’s only all electric speed boat racing championship
In Doha, Qatar, MailOnline’s Wiliam Hunter goes behind the scenes to see how E1 is becoming the fastest growing sporting platform
Although the sport is only in its second season, E1 has already attracted the support of celebrity team owners such as Rafael Nadal (left) and Will Smith (right)
What is E1?
E1 is the brainchild of Alejandro Agag, motorsport veteran and founder of the Formula E electric racing championship, and NASA scientist turned F1 engineer Rodi Basso.
As Mr Basso puts it, the goal was to create ‘a new sport platform based on sustainability, innovation, technology, and the marine lifestyle’.
While the sport itself is new, the style of racing should be familiar to any motorsport fans.
At each stage of the race, each team puts forward a male and female driver who take turns competing in a series of individual time trials.
Those times are then used to determine the starting order for a series of thrilling five-boat finals in which pilots battle to be the first across the finish line.
However, building a new form of motorsport from scratch hasn’t been without its complications.
When Mr Basso and Mr Agag pitched the idea back in 2020, all they had to show was a ‘very nice PowerPoint but no boats, no championship, no brand’.
Across seven stages around the world, nine teams battle it out on the water in head-to-head races in custom-built ‘racebird’ speedboats
Each team puts forward two pilots, one male and one female, who compete in a series of heats to secure their starting position in the final. Pictured: Team Rafa pilots Cris Lazarraga (left) and Tom Chiappe (right) alongside team owner Rafael Nadal
Each of the racebirds is equipped with a 6,000-volt electric motor and is capable of hitting speeds up to 50 knots (58 miles per hour)
‘You see I was blonde before all this started, now I’m black and grey,’ Mr Basso jokingly told MailOnline.
However, after completing the first successful season in 2024, the E1 championship has gone from strength to strength.
During the Doha stage, more than 10,000 fans flocked to the waterfront to catch a glimpse of the action, while millions more watched online.
What makes E1 different to other races?
But what makes E1 so unique isn’t the format of the race but what the pilots are driving.
The ‘racebird’, as E1’s racing boats are called, is a high-powered all-electric speedboat capable of hitting speeds up to 50 knots (58 miles per hour).
And it hasn’t just been race logistics keeping Mr Basso up at night.
He says: ‘There’s a lot of risk. I mean we have a 600-volt system in the water, so there’s a big feeling of responsibility.
What makes the E1 racebirds, as the boats are called, so different is that they are equipped with hydrofoil fins which lift the hull out of the water to reduce drag
‘Luckily I’ve been through this kind of project enough in life to make sure we did the right steps and got the right certification, but nevertheless, it’s always racing and it’s always 6,000 volts.’
Watching the racebirds line up from the waterside, beyond the conspicuous lack of sound from the electric motors, it might not look all that different from any other boat race.
But as the racers accelerate away from the start line, the unique twist quickly becomes apparent.
Once a racebird hits a certain speed, it begins to rise silently out of the water on three thin hydrofoil wings.
More commonly used in the world of competitive sailing, these ‘foils’ push against the water to create lift which forces the hull more than a metre clean above the waves.
John Marlow, co-principle of LeBron James’ Team AlUla, told MailOnline: ‘It’s genuinely easier to think of them as low-flying aircraft than as boats.
‘The principles on a foil are the same as the wings on an aircraft, and it’s all about managing the flow of water over those foils in a way that produces the least turbulence and the most lift.
‘We don’t talk about driving the racebird or sailing the racebird, we’re flying the racebird.’
Up on their hydrofoil fins, the speed boats face much less drag and are able to reach their top speeds on an electric battery which takes only 45 minutes to charge
What does it take to win?
Looking more like X-wings from Star Wars than speedboats, the racebirds lift on their foils and jostle for position.
While those foils might help the racers get ahead, they also come with their own complications.
Although the racebirds are much faster while up on their foils, they can’t navigate any sharp turns while flying above the water.
Louis Rogez, aerospace engineer and principal of Rafael Nadal’s Team Rafa, says: ‘We have two ways of making a turn, the first is to go very wide and try to keep flat on the foils.
‘The other one is being very aggressive, coming close to the buoy and dipping down into the water.’
Things get even more complicated when you take the racebird’s ‘boost’ capability into account.
Each pilot has a reserve of extra power they can call on to supercharge their battery’s output from 95 kilowatts of power up to 140 kilowatts.
Behind the scenes, teams of engineers and strategists work around the clock to get the most performance out of their boats
Although the foils reduce drag, they also make it much harder to turn. Racers have to decide whether to stay high and wide on the fins or turn aggressively by dipping their ‘wings’ into the water
However, to prevent the racers from frying their engines, each boat can only use 20 seconds of boost which takes 40 seconds to recharge.
As the pilots careen into the first corner, you can see the different strategies at play.
Some soar around in a wide ark, cutting through the water high up on their foils and saving their boost for later.
Others dip their wings into the water and slam around the buoy before pulling away on their reserves of boost.
There is only one tactic that all the racers can agree on.
‘Throttle always 100 per cent,’ Mr Rogez says enthusiastically.
And as some boats pull out in front, it is easy to see why maxing out the speed is so key.
Falling into the ‘dirty water’ left behind by the wake of the lead boat makes the racebirds much slower and pushes them ever further back.
Falling behind often means getting caught in the ‘dirty water’ from the boat in front which slows the racebird down. Teams must be strategic in order to overtake the lead boat
However, the teams do have some tricks up their sleeve that can help their pilots get out from behind.
During a standard five-boat race, each pilot must complete six laps including one mandatory short lap and one long lap.
Back on the shore, the teams are receiving a constant stream of data on everything from the angle of the outboard motor to the temperature of the engine.
Speaking to the pilots over the radio, the team must pick when to attack the lead and when to hang back out of their wake.
‘We’re trying to predict where to go for the long and the short lap in order to have as much clear water as possible in front since that’s the biggest overtaking opportunity we have,’ says Rogez.
What does it take to be an E1 pilot?
Part of what makes all of this so exciting is that, with only one season complete and an entirely new type of boat to master, there aren’t any E1 experts out there.
That means the 18 pilots making up the roster come from almost every possible background.
Inside the cockpit of an E1 racebird, temperatures can reach up to 60°C (140°F), but pilots must stay calm and race strategically. Pictured: Team Blue Rising pilot John Peeters, who previously broke the world speed record for an electric-powered boat
At just 19, Team Drogba’s Oban Duncan might be the youngest pilot in the paddock, but having started her race career at eight years old, she is already one of the most experienced.
Ms Duncan told MailOnline: ‘Coming from powerboat racing is an advantage I think, because you understand the water and there’s a lot of moving parts you understand better.’
However, with the foils adding an entirely unfamiliar element, Ms Duncan says her experience only extends so far.
She says: ‘These boats are so different to anything anyone has driven in the powerboat racing world, so we’re all starting from scratch really.’
That level playing field is a big help for pilots like Team AlUla’s Catie Munnings.
Although she might be more familiar to some as the host of CBeebies show Catie’s Amazing Machines, Ms Munnings started her racing career in rally driving.
She told MailOnline: ‘I want to be competitive at everything I do, and I didn’t think I would be because I had no experience on water.
‘But when I did my training, people from motorsport were actually really competitive because the way you control the boat is actually the opposite compared to conventional power boating.’
At just 19, Team Drogba’s Oban Duncan is the youngest pilot in the league but has been racing speedboats since the age of eight. She says that racing on foils is enough of a challenge to make things a level playing field
Lucas Ordonez (pictured), pilot of Will Smith’s Westbrook Racing, started his career by winning a video game competition playing Gran Turismo. Prior to joining E1 he had never raced in watersports
Additionally, the lower G-forces compared to Formula One means that E1 is one of the few single-seat motorsports where female racers can race head-to-head with men.
This has opened up the sport to a lot of female racers like Ms Duncan and Ms Munnings who might not otherwise get their time in the spotlight.
However, getting into the cockpit of an E1 racebird isn’t always smooth sailing.
With just enough room for one pilot and only a few small windows to see out of, racing can often be hot, cramped, and dangerous.
Munnings told MailOnline: ‘Racing on the water is definitely unique, it’s very claustrophobic and it can be more than 60°C (140°F) when you race.’
What’s in the future for E1?
With the Visit Qatar E1 Doha GP over, E1’s teams and managers are now looking towards the future of the sport.
As far as Rodi Basso is concerned, that future looks a whole lot bigger than it does now.
In the future, E1 plans to expand to more cities around the world including London. The league charges cities a hosting fee which makes up most of its revenue
‘I want to be the fastest growing sporting platform of the sporting world,’ says Mr Basso.
‘I want to get to 15 races in season five. I want to go to Tokyo, I want to be in Singapore, and India and China.’
Mr Basso adds that E1 is working on bringing a racing stage to London, adding: ‘I want to be in Zone One and even in the ponds of Barnes where I live.’
Likewise, Mr Basso says that the league should soon be adding a tenth team with another celebrity owner.
However, far from being overzealous bluster, expanding rapidly will be critical for E1 to succeed.
The majority of E1’s revenue comes from charging cities a hosting fee and taking licence payments from the teams.
In exchange, E1 provides everything from the boats and engines to the camera crews and Wi-Fi to put on a spectacle to reel in international attention for any city or celeb willing to pay.
That means with more teams on the roster and more cities on the schedule, the bigger E1’s potential profits.
Future races will also give teams more control over their boats design. Currently teams are restricted in what they can adjust and can only alter small details like the propellor
In Doha, Rafael Nadal’s Team Rafa came out on top, securing their first win in the championship
The other big change on the horizon will be how much control E1 gives teams over their boats.
The boats currently come stock, and teams are extremely restricted in what they can change.
At the moment teams are limited to some minor software tweaks and a choice between one of four different propellors provided by E1.
But that should soon start to change as the teams vote to open up engineering on certain aspects of the design.
Rogez told MailOnline: ‘At the end of the year, if all the teams agree to open up the design of the propellors, then each team will be able to design their own.
‘We can imagine that in 10 years we’ll be designing our own propellers, our own foils, our own electric motors.’
