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In the second race of the third season of the E1 electric speedboat series, first place was taken by the team owned by actor Will Smith – which also landed them on top of the championship standings for the first time ever.
The race took place in the shadows of the Italian Alps on Italy’s iconic Lake Como, the only race of this season’s nine events that is held on fresh water. Others are held in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Dobrovnik (Croatia), Monaco, Luada (Angola), Lagos (Nigeria), Miami (USA) and Bahamas.
Listen to this article as a podcastThe E1 has ten teams owned by well known personalities like Smith, NFL great Tom Brady, tennis great Rafael Nadal, multi-Grammy winner Marc Anthony and others. Each team has a female and male pilot who race in one design hydrofoiling electric boats that can hit speeds of 90 kmph (50 knots / 55 mph).
Each race weekend has a day of qualifying then a day of ‘playoffs’, the finals and consolation ‘place race’. The gender of the pilot of each alternates each race, but there is no ‘women’s race’ and ‘men’s race’, all races have a mix.
Before we get to the Como event, you can click on one of the two sections below to get an Overview of the Series and/or an explanation of the Rules and Strategies.
Overview of the E1 Series, Team Owners, Pilots and the Racebird boatLaunched 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 Westwood 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.
Lake Como is the longest course on the E1 circuit, and because it is inland, is less prone to large waves and swells. That makes a difference because the boats go fastest and perform best when they are raised above the water on their hydrofoils. It’s not all ‘smooth sailing’ in Como though, the winds coming through the mountains can change conditions quickly.
Read Plugboats coverage of the other 2026 E1 Series races
Coming into this session, the championship leaders were in order: Team Aoki (owned by DJ/Producer Steve Aoki); Team Brady (Tom Brady); and Team AlUla (championed by basketball’s Lebron James). Smith’s Westbrook team was in fourth with Rafael Nadal’s Team Rafa close behind.
Friday’s qualifying Quarter Finals brought a big surprise when Aoki and Brady finished seventh and eighth and were knocked out of the Pole Shootout that determines Saturday’s group allocations.
Two other teams with disappointing Fridays were Team Rafa and Team Blue Rising (owned by Indian cricket hero Virat Kohli). One of Rafa’s laps in the Time Trials was invalidated for a wrong procedure returning to the milling area, and Blue Rising received a 4:00 penalty for a different infraction.
Tight championship race after Smith winThat’s quite the day. Brady won the first two E1 Championships, with Rafa and Blue Rising coming in second and third last season. Aoki came into Como as this year’s frontrunner…and coming out of Qualifying Day those teams were in the 7, 8, 9 and 10 positions!
Under the E1 rules, no team is eliminated after Qualifying and every team has a chance for redemption in the Saturday races, but all of these very accomplished teams and pilots had certainly made their road to the finals and the podium much more difficult than they had planned anticipated.
At the other end of qualifying, Rusty Wyatt of AlUla delivered the fastest lap of the day (1:18.667) to take the pole position for Saturday’s Group Races and Sara Price put Westbrook second with a time just 0.247 seconds slower.
Saturday’s races in the E1 Series are set up to determine which six teams will be in the Finals, which itself consists of two races. The path to get to those finals starts with the Group Stage races, where the top two teams go to the Finals and the bottom two go to the consolation Place Race. The others then battle through Race Offs to determine who else goes to which race.
Pilot John Peeters of Blue Rising flipped his bad Friday by producing two incredible starts, coming from the outside lane to take the lead and secure a spot in the weekend’s Finals. That work also earned him the PIF Pilot of the Day Award.
Aoki and Brady likewise managed to make their way to the finals and Westwood came through with a boat that had been repaired after some Friday damage. Qualifying top seed AlUla also made it to the Finals with Team Monaco rounding out the field after joining the championship only this year.
Westbrook Racing pilots Sara Price and Lucas Ordóñez both came put on top in their Finals races, followed by Peeters and Mashael Alobaidan of Blue Rising. Emma Kimiläinen of Team Brady damaged her E1 RaceBird after colliding with a course mark in Final 1, but teammate Sam Coleman was able to nurse the boat home in Final 2 to finish third overall.
Will Smith was jubilant after the victory, saying in the team owner group chat: “Finally! That one felt good” and joking “Wait, why’s Brady declining my calls?”
The results of the Como race set up a very tight top of the standings with Westwood’s 63 points putting them on top, Brady only three points back at 59 and Aoki only three points behind that! The next race, Dubrovnik June 12 and 13, could be important because both AlUla (46) and Team Blue Rising (36) cannot be counted out – especially after their performances in Como.
E1 Series website E1 YouTube Channel
2026 E1 Championship StandingsAfter Race 2: Lake Como PLC TEAM OWNER FEMALE MALE PTS 1 Westbrook Racing Will Smith Sara Price Lucas Ordóñez 63 2 Team Brady Tom Brady Emma Kimiläinen Sam Coleman 59 3 Aoki Racing Team Steve Aoki Sara Misir Dani Clos 56 4 Team AlUla Championed by LeBron James Nerea Martí Rusty Wyatt 46 5 Team Blue Rising Virat Kohli Mashael AlObaidan John Peeters 38 6 Sierra Racing Club Thibaut Courtois and Kyle Kuzma Catie Munnings Erik Stark 22 7 Team Monaco Oban Duncan Maxime Nocher 18 8 Team Rafa Rafael Nadal Cris Lazarraga Tom Chiappe 16 9 Team Miami powered by Magnus Marc Anthony Rianna O’Meara-Hunt* Timmy Hansen 14 10 Team Drogba Global Africa Didier Drogba Tara Pacheco* Micah
Wilkinson 12
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