Draft:2024 E1 Series Championship

E1 Series
The 2024 UIM E1 World Championship is the inaugural season of the E1 Series electric powerboat racing series. The "Race to Hong Kong" launched on 2 February in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.

Calendar
The season was originally supposed to begin in 2023, with a goal to have about one race per month. A need for more teams caused delays to the start, with the first calendar being officially released on June 8, 2023. The provisional calendar had the first race set to take place during January 2024 in Jeddah, Saudia Arabia, with the season finale in Rotterdam, Netherlands in September 2024. On December 20, 2023, a new calendar was released, which saw the series expand to three regions (Europe, the Middle East, and Asia), with the premiere getting pushed back to February, and the new season finale taking place in Hong Kong in November 2024. This version also featured a race in Geneva, Switzerland, which has since been removed from the calendar. On June 26, 2024, a race was announced for Lake Como, which replaced Rotterdam as the location of the fifth round. The following events were on the original calendar, but did not appear in the final version.

Race format
A race weekend consists of testing, free practice, and qualifying on the first day, while the semi-finals, play-off race, eliminator race, place race, and finals all take place on the second day.

The first race in Jeddah featured a modified format, as there were only 8 teams. For rounds 2–6, the format was changed to accommodate the extra entry of Westbrook Racing, which brought the total number of teams up to 9.

Qualifying is three sets of three racers, with each team getting two sessions in order to allow both pilots to set a time. After qualifying, the teams are split into three groups of 3, racing against each other in 6 semi-final races. The top team in each group automatically goes to the final, while the second place finishers battle in a Playoff race for the last spot. The third place finishers race in an Eliminator race, with the last-place finisher placing 9th for the event. The bottom two teams in the Playoff, and the top two teams in the Eliminator then compete in the Place Race, for positions 5 through 9. The top four teams compete in the Final, which consists of the combined results of Super Final 1 and Super Final 2.

UIM E1 Pilot Academy
The UIM E1 Pilot Academy was created to train a new generation of racers to compete in the E1 Series. Female and male athletes with experience in motorsport, cycling, Esports, extreme sports and high-speed sports were invited to apply. A total of 34 racers took part in the training, with 18 being selected to compete in the inaugural season of the series.

Group 1


 * 🇺🇸 Jordan Rand
 * 🇬🇧 Kriss Kyle
 * 🇪🇸 Cris Lazarraga
 * 🇮🇳 CS Santosh
 * 🇫🇮 Emma Kimiläinen
 * Ahmad Alfahim

Group 2


 * 🇪🇸 Laia Sanz
 * 🇸🇪 Timmy Hansen
 * 🇱🇻 Ieva Millere-Hagin
 * 🇸🇪 Erik Stark
 * 🇲🇨 Lisa Caussin Battaglia
 * 🇬🇧 Phelim Kavanagh

Group 3


 * 🇬🇧 Catie Munnings
 * 🇮🇹 Gianluca Carli
 * 🇺🇸 Sara Price
 * 🇮🇹 Alex Carella
 * 🇺🇸 Alex Pratt
 * 🇬🇧 Lewis Appiagyei

Group 4


 * 🇮🇹 Vicky Piria
 * 🇪🇸 Dani Clos
 * 🇬🇧 Oban Duncan
 * 🇨🇴 Sebastian Ordonez
 * 🇸🇦 Mashael AlObaidan
 * 🇰🇼 Yousef Al-Abdulrazzaq

Group 5


 * 🇮🇹 Alberto Comparato
 * 🇪🇸 Lucas Ordóñez
 * 🇬🇧 Sam Coleman
 * 🇸🇦 Saud Ahmed
 * 🇮🇹 Alex Carella

Group 6


 * 🇲🇨 Giacomo Sacchi
 * 🇸🇬 Janice Oo
 * 🇮🇹 Andrea Comella
 * 🇸🇦 Rinad Hafez
 * 🇸🇬 Clemet Tham

Official Entries

 * On April 27, 2021 it was announced that the Venice Racing Team, headed by entrepreneur Francesco Pannoli, would be the first team to join the inaugural season of the E1 Series, which was supposed to take place in 2023. The team was still included in competitor lists as late as August 2023, but did not appear on the final roster for the 2024 season.

Race 1: Jeddah
Team Miami led the qualifying on day 1, earning an extra point in the championship. In the semifinals, Team Brady and Team Rafa topped their respective groups, while Team Miami and Team Blue Rising also qualified for the final. Super Final 1 was led by Team Rafa, followed by Team Miami and Team Brady. In Super Final 2, spray blocked Team Rafa's Cris Lazarraga's view, causing her to cut a corner and take an additional long lap as a penalty. Sam Coleman took the lead of Super Final 2, and clinched the overall final for Team Brady.

Race 2: Venice
Team Miami claimed their second consecutive pole position, while Team Blue Rising failed to set a qualifying time, and both Team Rafa and Aoki Racing Team had one of their session's lap times disqualified. Team Brazil, Team Drogba, and newcomers Westbrook Racing were the three seminfinal winners, earning an automatic spot in the final. Team Brady won the play-off race to clinch the fourth spot in the finals, while Team Checo lost the eliminator race and was therefore out of the place race. Team Brady had a dominant showing, winning Super Final 1 and 2 to earn their second victory in the series.

Race 3: Puerto Banús
Choppy waters at the third event shook up the standings. Team Drogba claimed pole position, while two-time winners Team Brady were eliminated after a power outage in Semifinal 3. Team Blue Rising clinched fourth place overall, but had to withdraw from Super Final 2 after the nose of their craft detached while racing in Super Final 1. The same thing happened to Team Brazil in Super Final 2, while Westbrook Racing stalled mid-race but crossed the finish line in second and picked up an extra point for the fastest lap. Team Miami won their first final, and moved to first in the standings.

Results and standings
Points are awarded to all 9 teams. An additional point is given to the fastest team in qualifying, and the team with the fastest lap. For the first race, because there were only 8 teams, the point system was slightly different.
 * Scoring system