US motorsport giant Chip Ganassi Racing has become the latest team to commit to the Extreme E electric off-road series being launched for 2021 by Formula E’s creators.
Ganassi joins its IndyCar rival Andretti Autosport in adding an Extreme E team to its line-up of racing programmes.
Unlike Andretti – which has been part of Formula E since the series’ inception – Ganassi’s Extreme E programme is its first electric motorsport campaign.
Team owner Chip Ganassi said: “Extreme E is a very different proposition to anything we have done before, but it’s where I think motor racing is headed in the future.
“When I started our team in 1990, one of the founding principles I built it on was innovation. I’ve always been passionate about pushing the boundaries of what is possible, and Extreme E checks that box for us in a big way.
“It represents an opportunity in motor racing to use the latest technologies to attract a new, younger audience to this great sport of ours.
“Everything about Extreme E is cool, from the car to the race format and the in-built technology.”
The series will launch with a five-round campaign next season, beginning in Senegal in January.
It announced last week that under its regulations every team must field one male and one female driver, giving it the first mandatory equal gender balance in top-level motorsport.
Ganassi is the first team announced for Extreme E that has not had a previous affiliation with the series – with the rest of the initial roster teams that have either raced in FE, been suppliers for the series, or have relationships with an FE driver.
This will not be Ganassi’s first programme outside circuit racing as it entered a team in the now-defunct Global RallyCross Championship in America in the mid-2010s.
