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ACCIONA|SAINZ XE team starts 2024 extreme e season in Saudi Arabia

Corporate
15 of February, 2024

  • New Driver: the ACCIONA team incorporates Fraser McConnell as Laia Sanz’s teammate for the fourth season of the sustainable motorsport championship

  • Awareness: this initial Desert X Prix will reflect the impact of desertification and the need for conservation of the ecosystems along the Red Sea coastline

ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team will compete this weekend (February 17th-18th) in the inaugural race of the fourth season of Extreme E, the pioneering motorsport competition that promotes awareness of climate impact, gender equality and the transition to sustainable mobility.

Laia Sanz, who has been part of the ASXE Team since the inaugural season in 2021, will once again lead the team. Sanz has just achieved her best result in the Dakar Rally on four wheels, after finishing in the top 15 in her fourteenth participation overall and her third participation driving a car. This is the result of the progress that she has demonstrated year after year in Extreme E, as she has become a key driver in the championship.

As a major novelty, the ACCIONA team incorporates Fraser McConnell as Sanz’s teammate. As a rallycross specialist, the Jamaican driver joins the team at the age of 25 after participating in the 2023 season with the X44 team, with which he won the Hydro X Prix in Scotland and the Island X Prix in Sardinia.

ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team heads into the new series after completing its best-ever Extreme E season in the 2023 edition by finishing as runner-up, with its first two wins and three second-place finishes.

With its participation in the 2024 season, ACCIONA strengthens its commitment to the values promoted by the competition and consolidates its position as one of the few teams that has competed in Extreme E since its inception.

Through such mass sport events, the company contributes to raising social awareness of the fight against climate change and the need to accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy.

The championship will once again tour the planet with ten races designed to show spectators the habitats particularly affected by the consequences of climate change. The 2024 races will be held in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), Sardinia (Italy) and Phoenix (US), which entails the championship's debut in North America. There will also be a fourth destination, yet to be announced.

 

VISIBILITY AND POSITIVE FOOTPRINT

The inaugural event will once again be held in Saudi Arabia, 125 kilometers from the city of Jeddah, which is the host city for the first time, taking over from Al-Ula (2021) and Neom (2022, 2023).

The Desert X Prix will give visibility to an ecosystem in the midst of desertification, which is accelerated by the high temperatures caused by global warming and the rapid increase of water stress.

As in each of the races, the competition organizes a Legacy Programme in which a series of activities will be carried out to support local organizations and leave a positive impact on the community. The eight teams on the grid this year will be involved in coral reef conservation work along the Red Sea coastline with the organizations CORDAP, KAUST and Ocean Revive.