MENGENAI EPISOD INI
With a win by Angola Westbrook Racing (owned by actor Will Smith) in Dubrovnik this past weekend, his team now leads the race for the E1 season championship as the sport continues to grow in popularity. Tom Brady’s Team Brady – champion of the first two season – is in second spot followed by Team AlUla Championed by NBA star LeBron James.
This is the second year that Croatia’s historic and romantic city has hosted the E1, and the third race of the 2026 series. The Adriatic Luxury Hotels E1 Dubrovnik GP 2026 takes place in the turquoise waters off Old Town, with its medieval walls, copper-green domes and terracotta roofs providing a stunning backdrop to the 21st century electric technology.
Listen to this article as a podcastThe E1 format has ten teams competing, each owned by well known personalities like Smith, Brady, James, tennis legend 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 – Racebirds – that can hit speeds of 90 kmph (50 knots / 55 mph).
Second year for Dubrovnik eventThe season consists of eight race weekends. Previous to Dubrovnik were Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and Lake Como, Italy. Monaco is next up on the calendar (17-18 July), followed by Luada, Angola (12-13 Sep), Lagos, Nigeria (3-4 Oct), Miami, USA (13-14 Nov), and winding up with the crowning of the ‘Champions of the Water” in the Bahamas (Nov 21-22).
Each race weekend has a day of qualifying, then a multi-race day: ‘playoffs’, the finals and consolation ‘place race’. The gender of the pilot of each team alternates throughout each weekend’s races, but there is no ‘women’s race’ and ‘men’s race’, all races have a mix.
Before we get to the Dubrovnik 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.
Coming into Dubrovnik, Smith’s Westbrook Angola Team had only won in one locale: Italy’s Lake Como – the only freshwater event on the circuit. The most recent victory was a month ago and the first was two years before that. Pilots Lucas Ordóñez and Sara Price were sitting on top of the standings for the first time coming into Dubrovnik, but it was a slim lead. Just three points separated them from Emma Kimiläinen and Sam Coleman of Team Brady, another three from the team owned by DJ/Producer Steve Aoki (Dani Clos and Sara Misir), and seventeen from James’ AlUla team of Nerea Martí and Rusty Wyatt. Expectations were high for a thrilling weekend.
The waters off Dubrovnik’s Old Town may be beautiful but they are deceptively challenging for the Racebirds, which travel fastest when their hydrofoiling wings are evenly balanced at the same height above the water. Waves, especially unpredictable ones, are not friends.
In Dubrovnik, big rollers come from different directions all over the track, not just the deep waters of the Adriatic Sea, but also bouncing back from the shore side. Winds coming off the coastal mountains don’t make things any easier or less complicated.
Challenging conditionsFriday Qualifying was a great demonstration of how the pilots navigate through these kinds of conditions, but held few surprises as Westbrook, Brady and Aoki came out 1-2-3, their positions at that time in the overall Championship standings.
In Saturday’s Group Stage races, Westbrook continued their winning form, thoroughly dominating and getting a direct bye to the Finals. “This is amazing for our team,” said pilot Sara Price. “I don’t think we’ve ever actually won qualifying.” They were joined in the Finals by arch-rival Team Brady as both Kimiläinen and Coleman topped their Group Stage to keep the pressure on for the overall season hunt.
It was a different story for Team Drogba Global Africa, owned by footballer Didier Drogba – former Chelsea star and Captain of the Ivory Coast World Cup team. Despite New Zealand pilot Micah Wilkinson topping his Group Stage race, a disqualification for dangerous driving by teammate Tara Pacheco – a four-time Spanish Olympian and world champion sailor – resulted in the team missing out on a place in the Finals.
The Finals of an E1 race weekend consist of two races – the times of the female and male racers are combined – and six teams competing. With Westwood and Brady automatically in due to their Group Stage performances, six other teams participated in the Race Off to determine the other four Finalists and their pole positions.
There, Tom Chiappe of Rafael Nadal’s Team Rafa put in a masterful performance that led to him being awarded PIF Pilot of the Day for steering his team to the Finals despite a tough overall weekend. AlUla and Team Miami (Marc Anthony) were nose and nose for the next pole position and the sixth team in the Finals was Monaco, a new entry this year.
In Final 1 Emma Kimiläinen of Team Brady beat Westbrook’s Price to the first corner and held the advantage for the rest of the race. Final 2 was disrupted after the nose of Timmy Hansen’s Team Miami boat became detached as a result of a high-impact collision with a significant wave that saw the red flags come out and the team out of the race. Once racing resumed, Westbrook’s Lucas Ordóñez found extra speed to take the chequered flag and overall victory.
Speaking after the race, Ordóñez said: “This weekend has been incredibly special. We’ve triumphed in difficult conditions and proved our fight and resilience as a team. Will has backed us all the way so it’s amazing to pay back that trust.”
This season is far from overTeam Brady’s second place puts them 12 points behind Westbrook for the season, with AlUla another 19 points back. The season is still young, though. The winners of a race weekend receive 38 points, so with the season not even halfway through, this is far from over.
Jamie Copas, Chief Executive Officer, E1, said: “This has been an extraordinary weekend of racing in one of the world’s great coastal cities, and today’s final delivered everything E1 stands for – fierce competition, gifted pilots, and the most spectacular setting in motorsport. The 2026 Championship is shaping up to be one of the most compelling seasons we have seen. We head to Monaco next month with the standings far from settled and every point between now and the finale will matter.”
One of the unique aspects of the E1 Series is the off-water activities, some of which are driven by celebrity awareness and other by awareness of what is happening with our planet.
On the celebrity side, LeBron James and fellow NBA star Kyle Kuzma (co-owner of Team Sierra Racing Club) were on the Dalmatian Coast alongside tennis legend Rafael Nadal to see everything live.
They do not bring star power alone, though. All owners are committed to E1’s mission to “leveraging the unique sporting platform and unmatched global reach to showcase cutting-edge technologies that promote the protection of marine ecosystems and the uptake of e-mobility solutions worldwide.”
On Friday, in addition to the Qualifying races, there was also a Blue Economy Summit convened by Dubrovnik and Croatian officials, industry leaders, financial institutions and public authorities to examine how coastal economies can transition to climate-resilient development. The Championship provides a live demonstration of zero-emission marine technology at scale.
While the team owners aren’t in the cockpits of the boats, their competitive spirits still shine through in their WhatsApp group. Will Smith posted a celebratory ‘YES! Finally ahead of you, Brady‘ as the NFL icon and owner of the two time reigning champions shot back with that time-honoured phrase of every sporting event: ‘We’ll see you at the next one.’
E1 Series website E1 YouTube Channel
2026 E1 Championship StandingsAfter Race 3: Dubrovnik PLC TEAM OWNER FEMALE MALE PTS 1 Westbrook Racing Will Smith Sara Price Lucas Ordóñez 101 2 Team Brady Tom Brady Emma Kimiläinen Sam Coleman 89 3 Team AlUla Championed by LeBron James Nerea Martí Rusty Wyatt 70 4 Aoki Racing Team Steve Aoki Sara Misir Dani Clos 59 5 Team Blue Rising Virat Kohli Mashael AlObaidan John Peeters 47 6 Team Rafa Rafael Nadal Cris Lazarraga Tom Chiappe 35 7 Team Monaco Oban Duncan Maxime Nocher 33 8 Sierra Racing Club Thibaut Courtois and Kyle Kuzma Catie Munnings Erik Stark 27 9 Team Miami powered by Magnus Marc Anthony Rianna O’Meara-Hunt* Timmy Hansen 26 10 Team Drogba Global Africa Didier Drogba Tara Pacheco* Micah
Wilkinson 20
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