I like motorsport, so I watch a lot of it. I try to go in person, where possible. I know some local drivers personally, and I have considered becoming a track “official”. That’s my starting point for this “perspective”.
Recently, I came across Formula E. The all-electric version of Formula 1, basically…
It’s a bit shit, partly because the cars and drivers are like off-brand Formula 1, but mainly because the rules are fucking absurd, and they have chosen absurd temporary tracks, in shitty locations, in old industrial parts of big cities around the world, instead of using existing track infrastructure… So it just… Looks like shit the whole time. Seoul was novel because they used the old Olympic Park, but in general it was just… Shit.
Today I watched Extreme E, which is the rally equivalent (electric), and it is just… A complete fucking joke. Comically absurd.
All teams must have one man and one woman. Each of those does one lap of the course in the car, with a 40-second stationary changeover in between (yes, really). Each of the races is held “in a remote location” WITH NO SPECTATORS. It is purely made for TV. No pit. Everything (external to the car) is done indoors, in tents. Teams aren’t allowed to travel by air, so the series bought their own cargo ship, which they then proceed to use to carry all the equipment to these “vulnerable” locations (which is why no spectators, they claim), which they then destroy with race cars…
Half of each episode is devoted to greenwashing initiatives, climate change shit, and “white man bad”. At one point they were literally planting trees in the desert sand (!!), for virtue signaling purposes…
The whole thing is sponsored by the Saudi government (who else?), with the most convoluted rules I have ever seen in a car race, and yep, the first round held in the Saudi desert…
It’s a joke. A mockery of the sport. And yet all that fucking Saudi blood money means it is is widely promoted, and essentially immune to criticism…
Like, fuck, surely banning spectators tells you what a joke the whole thing is (even Dakar does not do that, and it literally uses some of the same course, now)…
Who would have thought that they could even ruin car racing, in current year (thanks, Hollywood, Jenson Button and fucking Lewis Hamilton once again!! They’re some of the main “sponsors” of this shit) smh…
Did you see the breaking news about Extreme E? They will have to have ethnic minority mechanics.
Sounds like it'll be fun for the sort of car race fan who only watches for the accidents, anyway.
I did not, but that is… the most unsurprising thing I have seen today, ahaha…
“Virtue signaling: the series”
It’s funny, because that rule basically makes it literally just like Hollywood, no..?
Cringe…
I was going to say before: when Mullins slagged off karting, like it was “beneath her” (she literally said “I grew up in a rally car. I’ve only been karting maybe twice in my life. It’s a waste of time and I don’t need it.”), in her “series driver interviews”, I knew the whole thing was a complete joke…
Let’s call it what it is, then: rich kids “race” EVs, often badly, in dumb locations, while pretending to care about the environment, and taking that sweet, sweet Saudi oil money…
It could be a cool concept. It’s just… Not. For the reasons we’ve all said, lol.