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The E1 Electric Speedboat Championship Series returned to Monaco July 17-18 for the fourth event of the 10 city circuit. This 2026 race marks the Championship’s third visit to the Principality, and came just one week after the 13th annual Monaco Energy Boat Challenge (MEBC). Both events are focused on electric boats, and both are hosted at the Yacht CLub de Monaco (YMC).
Listen to this article as a podcastThe MEBC brings together over 400 students from 30 colleges and universities around the world to design and build fossil-fuel free boats that compete against each other in three categories. It is also a showcase for commercial electric boat manufacturers.
Technology and sustainabilityTogether the E1 and MEBC help reinforce Monaco’s reputation as a leader in promoting new propulsion and other technologies that aim to reduce the impact of human activity on the world’s oceans and other waterways.
The E1 Series mission is to “leverage the unique sporting platform and global reach of our competitions to showcase cutting-edge technologies that promote the protection of marine ecosystems and the uptake of e-mobility solutions worldwide.”
Speaking at the start of the weekend, his Serene Highness Prince Albert II of Monaco said “We know how hard it is to start a new series like this – almost a new sport – and the spirit in which it’s been done is truly remarkable. I want to wish everyone well as they continue to push the limits as a showcase for sustainability, It’s a great message for the future.”
The two events also share an historic offshore racing course overlooked by the iconic Monte Carlo Casino. These waters are where the world’s first sanctioned powerboat racing competition was held in 1904 and are now the location for both the the E1 Series and the YCM (Yacht Club de Monaco) Speed Record competition of the Energy Boat Challenge.
Just the week before the E1 Series, the Frauscher X Porsche Specter 797 set a new record for the MEBC with a speed of 51.05 knots: 94.54 kph / 58.75 mph. That is more than impressive for a production planing boat. It’s the same top speed as the much hydrofoling and – much lighter – Racebirds of the E1. (There is a full Overview of the Racebird boats, the E1 Rules and the race strategies at the bottom of this article)
Read: Frauscher X Porsche sets second speed recrod at Monaco Energy Boat Challenge
The E1 races are held over two days and the first day’s Qualifying events had loads of action, a few surprises and a little sentimentality. Although this is the third time Monaco has hosted the E1, it is the first time it has had a home team participating in the Championships – a stellar opportunity for its two pilots to show their best stuff.
The male half of the piloting duo for Team Monaco is Maxime Nocher, previously one of the most accomplished figures in kitesurfing, with 11 world championships to his name. The other pilot is Oban Duncan – only 20 years old – who began her competitive boat racing career at the age of eight and started with E1 when she was just 18. That was after setting a British powerboat speed record and being crowned British Powerboat Champion 10 times.
Monaco team wins QualifyingThey did the Principality proud in Friday’s Qualifying sessions as they claimed the home pole ahead of the Saturday race showdowns. This was especially well done because the waves of the Mediterranean coming into shore and bouncing back to sea created some of the roughest conditions of this year’s E1 season.
Those conditions were not equally kind to Actor Will Smith’s Team Westbrook. They were sitting on top of the standings coming in to Monaco on the strength of back-to-back victories in Lake Como and Dubrovnik. Unfortunately the weekend’s high chop led to a propeller overspeeding on pilot Sara Price, leaving her underpowered for the remainder of her session and placing Westbrook in fifth.
On Finals Day the next morning it was Monaco’s turn to get snake bitten. They made a wrong turn on the course in their Group Race, which consigned them to join Westbrook in the Place Race along with Team Rafa – owned by tennis legend Rafael Nadal – and Team AlUla, championed by basketball star LeBron James.
In the Finals, Team Drogba, owned by former Chelsea footballer Didier Drogba, dominated both races and put together their first E1 victory ever.
Team Drogba grabs first ever victoryIn Final 1, with Spanish pilot Tara Pacheco at the wheel, they finished just ahead of Emma Kimiläinen of Team Brady, owned by the former NFL great. The battle resumed in Final 2 with Kiwi Micah Wilkinson holding off Kimiläinen’s partner Sam Coleman. Wilkinson was rewarded with PIF Pilot of the Day for his performance in the race. Team Miami came through to finish third, securing their first podium spot in 13 races.
Will Smith’s Westbrook team salvaged things a bit by getting a victory in the Place Race, which translates into seventh overall for the weekend. That knocked them down from first in the season standings to second, allowing Brady to get to the top and lead by nine points.
Team AlUla came into Monaco 3rd overall and leaves in the same place, but now has others nipping at their stern. Aoki, owned by DJ Steve Aoki, is only 4 points behind, and Team Blue Rising, owned by Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is just 9 points behind that.
Team Drogba’s victory had them jump from 10th overall to 5th overall and they are now just five points behind Blue Rising.
The season is not even half over, there are still six races to go, and lots of points to be dished out. The winner of the Finals receives 38 points, the second place finisher 30 points and third place 20. So you can see how things can change quickly. The next exciting race is September 12 and 13 in Luanda, Angola.
E1 Series website E1 YouTube Channel
2026 E1 Championship StandingsAfter Race 3: Dubrovnik PLC TEAM OWNER FEMALE MALE PTS 1 Team Brady Tom Brady Emma Kimiläinen Sam Coleman 119 2 Westbrook Racing Will Smith Sara Price Lucas Ordóñez 110 3 Team AlUla Championed by LeBron James Nerea Martí Rusty Wyatt 75 4 Aoki Racing Team Steve Aoki Sara Misir Dani Clos 71 5 Team Blue Rising Virat Kohli Mashael AlObaidan John Peeters 64 6 Team Drogba Global Africa Didier Drogba Tara Pacheco* Micah
Wilkinson 59 7 Sports.com Predict Team Powered by Magnus Marc Anthony Rianna O’Meara-Hunt Timmy Hansen 50 8 Sierra Racing Club Thibaut Courtois and Kyle Kuzma Catie Munnings Erik Stark 46 9 Team Monaco Oban Duncan Maxime Nocher 44 10 Team Rafa Rafael Nadal Cris Lazarraga Tom Chiappe 38 Overview of the E1 Series, Team Owners, Pilots and the Racebird boat
Launched in Jeddah in January 2024, the E1 Series features ten teams racing the one design ‘RaceBird’ all-electric hydrofoiling speedboats at events held in top international ports and waterways. Each team is owned by a noted figure in the worlds of sport, entertainment and business and is led by a female and male pilot who compete in mixed genre races throughout the season. There are no ‘men’s races’ and ‘women’s races’, they are all on equal footing.
The goal of the series, aside from deciding ‘The Champions of the Water’, is to publicize and promote cutting-edge clean technologies while helping to protect and restore our planet’s coastal waters and ecosystems.
The series was founded by Alejandro Agag and Rodi Basso and is loosely patterned after the on-land Formula 1 and Formula E car events, where the emphasis is on the driver’s capabilities rather than throwing money at technology. In fact, Agag is a founder of the Formula E electric car racing series and Basso worked with Ferrari, Red Bull Racing and McLaren Applied Technologies.
The Racebird itself is designed by Sophie Horne of Seabird Technologies. The Sophie Horne. The 7 meter (23 ft) boat has hydrofoiling wings that lift the hull out of the water enabling speeds of up to 90 kmph (50 knots / 55 mph) using a 150 kW (200 brake horsepower) electric outboard system by Mercury Racing and Kreisel batteries.
The ten teams and are their owners are:
- Team Brady: former NFL quarterback Tom Brady
- Team Rafa: tennis legend Rafael Nadal
- Team Miami: multi-Grammy winner Marc Anthony
- Team Aoki: DJ / Producer Steve Aoki
- Team AlUlA: championed by basketball’s Lebron James
- Team Drogba: Ivory Coast footballer Didier Drogba
- Team Blue Rising: Indian cricketer Virat Kohli
- Team Sierra: Sierra Enterprises with ambassadors Thibaut Courtois (Real Madrid soccer) and Kyle Kuzma (NBA basketball)
- Team Monaco: Monaco
The pilots of the boats come from a wide variety of disciplines. Many, like Sam Coleman and Emma Kimmaläinen of Team Brady, came from powerboating and motorsport racing, but Maxime Nocher of Team Monaco was a kite surfing champion; Team Drogma’s Tara Pacheco was in sailboat racing; Cris Lazarraga of Team Rafa was a jetski racer and Lucas Ordóñez of Westbrook first entered real life professional racing by winning a spot in a PlayStation 3 Gran Turismo competition.
Championship: Ten teams race over 9 weekends, with points awarded for finishing place, along with some bonus points for specific achievements. The Champions of the Water are the team that accumulates most points by the end of the season.
Events: Each event is held over two days, usually a Friday and Saturday. Qualifying time trials and races are held on Day One. Day Two has Group Races which decide two of the finalists, the Race Off to determine the other four finalists, the Place Race, and two Finals races – so both the female and male co-pilots of each team help determine the outcome.
The Finals and Place Race dictate the Championship Points awarded for each weekend.
Points Awarded: Points are awarded for each placing every weekend with the Champion having the most points at the end of the season.
1st: 38 | 2nd: 30 | 3rd: 23 | 4th: 19 | 5th: 15 | 6th: 13 | 7th: 9 | 8th: 8 | 9th: 5 | 10th: 3.
Points are also awarded for the three fastest Qualifiers: Fastest: 3 | 2nd: 2 | 3rd: 1.
One bonus point is awarded for the fastest lap of the weekend.
Qualifying: There are four Qualifying Stages with teams knocked out to establish the pole positions for Saturday’s races.
- Qualifying Stage 1: Time Trials in which all 10 teams participate, the results ranked by average of both pilots’ best laps. Bottom 2 teams eliminated.
- Qualifying Stage 2: Remaining 8 teams in two sessions (groups of 4). Individual timed runs in reverse order, 2 non-consecutive attempts per team. Bottom 2 teams eliminated.
- Qualifying Stage 3: Remaining 6 teams in two sessions (groups of 3). Same format as Q1. Bottom 2 eliminated.
- Qualifying Stage 4: Pole Shootout to determines initial Pole Positions on Race Day. Final 4 teams, single 20-minute session. Each completes 2 timed laps in inverted order. Points are awarded toward the Championship total: 3-2-1.
Saturday Racing
Group Stages: teams divided based on Qualifying results:
Group A: 1st, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th
Group B: 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 7th, 10th
The top team from each group advances directly to the Finals. The bottom team from each goes to the Place Race. The teams finishing 2-3-4 in each go to the Race Off.
Race Off: Six team single race (only one pilot from each team) with the top four finishers going to the Finals and the bottom two going to the Place Race.
Place Race: Two races, one with each team’s pilot, best averaged time. Determines places 7-10 and Championship points.
Finals: Two races, one with each team’s pilot, best averaged time. Determines places 1-6 and Championship points.
SOME GENERAL RULES:
Pilots
In every stage except the Group Races and the Race Off both the female and male pilot participate in separate races to determine the winning team of each stage, alternating races throughout the weekend.
In the Finals, the finishing order for the first race determines pole position for the second.
Laps
There is not just one lap length, but three: Short, ‘Normal’ and Long. The distances are tailored to the waters and layout of each location, but are somewhere between 900 m ( ≈ .5 Nm / .6 mi) and 1700 m ( to ≈ .91 Nm / 1.0 mi).
The Qualifying Stages are timed on one Normal lap. The Saturday Races are six laps – one of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. Penalties are usually an extra long lap within the six laps, which could add anywhere from 20 to 35 seconds to the overall race time.
Boosts
Then there are the boosts. Pilots are allowed to draw extra energy out of the battery – for bursts of speed up to 20 seconds. The catch is that the time it takes to prepare for another boost is twice as long as the boost itself. So, if a pilot takes a boost for 10 seconds they will have to wait for 20 seconds before they can take another. Between the lap lengths and the boosts, there is a LOT of strategy involved, and the pilots are in constant contact with ‘Mission Control’ back at the dock.
General Strategy
Aside from the boosting and lap strategies, the overriding goal is to find clean water. The RaceBirds travel fastest when they are flying above the water on their foils. The boats need to be balanced both across the beam and along the length for optimum performance and waves – either natural or from the other boats – makes it tougher to stay on foil. That not only slows the pilot down but also requires extra power to get back up out of the water and onto the foils.
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