Lake Como: where the beautiful people, and American tourists, take in the sights and tastes of one of Italy's top attractions. Most are unaware, or uninterested, that across the glacier-formed expanse of freshwater, the newest form of motorsport is dipping its toe into blue.
E1 is the latest venture from Alejandro Agag, following in the wheel tracks, or should that be wake, of Formula E and Extreme E. The stunning Villa d'Este, an opulent hotel dripping with classic Italian chic, is the host of round five of the electric powerboating series' maiden season.
The set-up has a familiar Formula E feel to it. The teams have a temporary paddock to prepare their crafts - the striking, Star Wars-esque ‘racebirds’ - while the Ocean Club gives the rich and powerful a suitably refined setting from which they can enjoy the racing while sipping champagne.
Out on the water, the course winds its way around a series of buoys. The TV production superimposes a track layout over the lake, but in reality the pilots navigate the course as they see fit, plotting their way through the calmest waters, avoiding making the turns too tight and submerging the hydrofoils, which drags the boat down and kills its speed.
The pilots are an eclectic bunch. GP2 race-winner and occasional Williams and HRT Formula 1 test driver Dani Clos and W Series frontrunner Emma Kimilainen represent the track racing community; there’s off-roaders Timmy Hansen and Catie Munnings, while powerboat racer Sam Coleman and jet-skier Anna Glennon are among those more familiar with the wet stuff.
Each team is limited to one powerboater but, ever competitive, the car racers feel they aren’t at a disadvantage.
“It's very sensitive,” says Kimilainen, who’s leading the championship for Team Brady (yes, that's Brady as in, legendary NFL player, Tom).
“The natural feel that you have is completely the same. You can just feel what happens, what the vehicle does, how you should take it, how it reacts to different things. What is very different from cars is basically the water, the track, it changes all the time.
“But what is good compared to car racing, is that I can actually move and change the set-up all the time.
"I change the position of the engine, I change that continuously all the time. And then we have a foil attached to the engine as well. So while you lift that, it actually changes the wakes coming to the middle foils, the big ones.
"Then we can also change the trim, so you trim up, or you trim down. So we have the trim and then the lift. Basically, it's like you would change gears.”
As is in Extreme E, each team has male and female pilots, and it's a combination of their times that decides the qualifying order, and which boats make it through to the final. Although the exact mechanics of how this is decided appears to be an enigma even championship insiders are unable to decode.
The teams themselves are the real stars: Team Brady, Team Checo (Red Bull's Sergio Perez) and Team Drogba (after the ex-Chelsea Premier League footballer, Didier).
It’s not Ferrari, Mercedes and Red Bull, and deliberately so. Rafael Nadal (Team Rafa), one of the greatest tennis players of all time, has 21.5 million Instagram followers, Will Smith (Team Westbrook) has 70.5 million.
When they dropped a video of themselves drag racing their boats at Villa d'Este it quickly racked up a million views, the most important metric in sport these days.
On-site spectators were limited to the lucky few with the means to get into the Ocean Club, but previous events in Monaco and Puerto Banus in Spain drew crowds of up to 10,000.
It’s a decent crowd for something fresh out of the box, but a long way from the 335,000 who swarmed to Monza less than 50 kilometres away for the following weekend’s grand prix.
Of course that’s an unfair comparison, but the authenticity of the buzz created by a live audience plays a key part in driving advocacy and awareness that manufacturers and sponsors crave.
It was the influx of the car brands that helped Formula E to break the cycle of new single-seater series that struggled to establish themselves.
When it launched, memories of A1GP and Superleague Formula cast a cynical shadow in the minds of motorsport fans and media. A decade on, 10 seasons later, and all but the most determined sceptics have been converted, even if some fans steadfastly refuse to be seduced by its electric charms.
Can this model be exported from land to sea?
"I was going to all the OEMs [manufacturers], the yacht manufacturers, and I was proposing E1," says E1 CEO Rodi Basso. "But there was no interest, because we were too young and they were too corporate. And then Alejandro [Agag] said, ‘Why don't we go at the highest level with celebrity?’ And it's working very well so far.
"But in Monaco, Team Miami announced a partnership with Azimut [Yachts] that is the most important manufacturer in the world, I think. The biggest in terms of reputation and everything.
"The manufacturers are noticing that E1 exists."
Victory for Team Westbrook, and the ultimate photo opportunity with Will Smith on the podium, doubtlessly proved the value in targeting celebrities over manufacturers, although the size of the orbit around these megastars dwarfs everything in their surroundings.
While a champagne-soaked Hollywood A-lister is a far easier sell to the TikTok generation, ultimately people need to have an emotional investment in Sara Price and Lucas Ordonez too if they are going to make an appointment to view next time around.
Talking of which, the Villa d'Este race was the penultimate round of the series, but where and when the finale will take place is another mystery. The complexities of putting a race calendar together are myriad, but not knowing what happens next is contrary to the 'appointment to view' nature that makes live sport so valuable to broadcasters and compelling to fans.
There’s also an issue with the speed of the boats. The dramatic looks are not mirrored by dramatic performance. Top speeds of 40 knots, that’s 46mph (74km/h) for landlubbers, is hardly breakneck.
This rises to 50 knots with 'boost' deployed, but there’s an acknowledgement that there’s a need for a bit more oomph.
"Fifty knots is an impressive speed for leisure boating, but when the boat goes 40 knots, it really doesn't look as I would like," Basso admits, "I would like it if I could start from 50 knots and then boost to 60 or 70."
Faster boats would be very welcome. While it's fascinating to see the pilots' input in making the boats 'fly' in the most consistent way, on their own, the boats aren't exhilarating enough to be compelling.
The group races are much better, although the dirty water created by the leading boat's wake does make foil-to-foil racing rarer than one desires.
Woooow! The greatest start we’ve ever had in E1 🤯
— E1 Series (@E1Series) August 24, 2024
Team Drogba were leading. Then it was Team Brazil. Then Team Miami took the inside line 🔥
This is the head-to-head racing we love to see 🫨#E1Series | #ChampionsOfTheWater pic.twitter.com/jVqyfzs19Q
Can E1 make the crossover between traditional powerboat fans and the wider motorsport world? Red Bull F1 driver and E1 'Team Checo' owner Perez believes it can.
"During the 1980s and 1990s powerboating was one of the top sports in Latin America and Europe," he says. "Now we can bring the knowledge and expertise from Formula 1 and Formula E to this series, because most of the engineers came from that world, and really elevate the sport once again in the world.
"This series is really pushing boundaries, we are racing in the most beautiful and special locations around the world, while trying to make efforts to seek a net zero future and look after our oceans."
Growing up in Bristol, my initiation into motorsport came via the Bristol Bulldogs speedway team (Go Crumpie!), and the Bristol Inshore Powerboat Grand Prix meeting that took place in the docks. So races that are often decided by the first corner are fine by me, but the lack of the stench of racing fuel, and the animalistic shrill of a highly-tuned outboard motor, means escapism eluded me.
But smell and noise are byproducts of inefficiency and redolent of a time that's never to return.
Is E1 motorsport? I don't really care. I admire people for trying to do something new and sustainable and I'm interested to see how it develops, even if I don't know when that finale is taking place.
