On the fourth leg of this year’s E1 electric speedboat championship, the team owned by NFL superstar Tom Brady put on an impressive showing to take the top podium spot at Italy’s Lago Maggiore June 27 and 28.
Team Brady pilots Emma Kimiläinen and Sam Coleman – champions in the inaugural series last year – grabbed the Pole Position after Friday’s time trials and led from the start in all four Saturday races, grabbing 38 point and jumping to third place in the overall standings.
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The E1 Series is sanctioned by the UIM as the first electric speedboat racing championship in the world. Nine teams, each owned by a high profile personality from sports, entertainment and business, compete in 7 events from January to November. Each event is held over a Friday and Saturday, and each team has a female and male pilot who alternate throughout the qualifying time trials, group races, playoffs and finals.
Read Plugboats coverage of all the E1 2025 Races: Jeddah Doha Dubrovnik
Monaco
As in Formula 1 and Formula E car racing, the hydrofoiling boats –‘Racebirds’ – have identical specs and equipment. Seven metres long, (23 ft) they weigh 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) with a power train that includes a 150 kW (205 hp) electric outboard from Mercury Racing, fast discharge 35 kWh batteries by Kreisel and specialized navigation and marine electronics by Simrad.
Click here to open and close a guide to E1 Rules TeamsThere are 9 teams, each made up of a female and male pilot, but this is not constructed as a female event and a male event, the pilots alternate throughout the event, with their results and times combined to decide the pole positions, winners of each leg, final standings and championship points.
The teams are owned by global stars of sports, entertainment and business like DJ Aoki, tennis legend Rafa Nadal, NFL GOAT Tom Brady, actor Will Smith, singer/producer Mark Anthony and Brazilian entrepreneur Marcelo Claure.
The events take place over two days. Friday is made up of time trials followed by two Qualifying Races. Saturday has four Group Races, one Race Off, one Place Race and two Finals Races.
FridayTime Trials
In the Time Trials, the teams are split into a group of 5 and a group of 4. The male or female pilot in each group has three timed laps, followed by their opposite sex teammate taking another three timed laps.
Qualifying Races
The best times of each team’s female and male pilot are added to determine the team results 1-9 with the teams finishing 6-7-8-9 going into Qualifying Race 1 and the teams finishing 1-2-3-4 going into Qualifying Race 2.
The Qualifying Races consist of five laps and the results determine the pole positions for Saturday’s Group Races.
Saturday
Group Races
The teams finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th coming out of the Qualifying Races start off the first Group Race going against the teams finishing 8th and 9th. The second race has the first place finisher going against 5, 6 and 7. THEN, the races are done again with the opposite sex teammates. (Four Group Races in all: Group 1 Stage A, Group 2 Stage A, Group 1 Srage B and Group 2 Stage B)). Each race is 6 laps and has to include 1 long lap and 1 short lap (see ‘Laps’ below).
The teams with the fastest times in each of the Groups get a bye into the Finals held later in the day. The teams with the slowest times in each of the Groups go into the Place Race.
Race Off
To determine the other 3 contestants in the Finals and the other 2 contestants in the Place Race, there is a Race Off between the 2-3 finishers of Group 1 and the 2-3-4 finishers of Group 2.
The three top finishers of the Race Off go to the finals and the two bottom place finishers go to the Place Race. (NOTE: The Race Off and the Place Race are the only two events where both sexes don’t compete, there is just one race.)
Finals Races
The Finals has two races with the two winners of the Group Races having pole position 1 and 2 and the other positions set according to results of the Race Off.
Laps
There is not just one lap length, but three: Short (1150 m / 62 Nm / .71 mi), ‘Normal’ (1469 m / .8 Nm / .91 mi) and Long (1687 m / .91 Nm / 1.0 mi).
The Time Trials are 1 Normal lap. The Qualifying Races are 6 Normal laps. The Group Races are 6 laps – 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Race Off and Place Race are 5 laps, 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Finals are like the Group Race – 6 laps including 1 long and 1 short.
Boosts
Then there are the boosts. Pilots are allowed to draw extra energy out of the battery – for bursts of speed up to 20 seconds. The catch is that the time it takes to prepare for another boost is twice as long as the boost itself. So, if a pilot takes a boost for 10 seconds they will have to wait for 20 seconds before they can take another. Between the lap lengths and the boosts, there is a LOT of strategy involved, and the pilots are in constant contact with ‘Mission Control’ back at the dock.
Points are awarded for final results of each weekend: 1 – 38 pts; 2 – 30 pts; 3 – 24 pts; 4 – 19 pts; 5 – 15 pts; 6 – 12 pts; 7 – 9 pts; 8 – 7 pts.
Points are also awarded for the three Pole Positions after the Qualifying Races: 1 – 3 pts; 2 – 2 pts; 3 – 1 pt. And there is a single point available for fastest lap of the weekend.
Midpoint of electric speedboat championship seasonThe Lago Maggiore GP marked the midpoint of the seven location series and was the first event to take place in freshwater and the only freshwater event on the 2025 circuit. It came after racing weekends in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia; Doha, Qatar; and Dubrovnik, Croatia with the next races slated for Monaco (July 18-19), Lagos Nigeria (Oct 4-5) and Miami, USA (Nov 7-8).
The event was a bit of a ‘homecoming’ for E1 and for hydrofoiling boats in general. It was on Lake Maggiore that Enrico Forlanini conducted the earliest experiments of hydrofoiling technology in 1906 and the first commercial passenger hydrofoil service was launched in 1953.
Read: AquasuperPower extends high speed charging network to Lake Maggiore
The hosting venue, Marina di Verbella, has been home to the E1 Pilot Academy training programme. While E1 brings in its own portable charging system for the races, the marina also has a high speed marine charger installed by Aqua superPower in 2023. Lake Maggiore is also where the very first Racebird prototype was built and tested. Nicknamed ‘Frankie’ (as in Frankenstein), it was basically a speedboat with hydrofoiling wings bolted on that was on display during the race weekend.
One of the big differences between racing in fresh and salt water is that the Racebirds can hit higher speeds in freshwater – up to about 95kph (50 kts / 55 mph). On the other side of things, though, the Maggiore course is packed into a smaller overall area than the other races, so it has tighter turns and shorter straightaways.
Hydrofoilng best in clear waterThat causes complications because boats run fastest when they are hydrofoiling, which is easiest in wake and wave free water. One of the prime objectives for the pilots is to be clear of the wake of the other boats. Tougher to do on a tight course. The best tactic is to be out in front of everyone else from the beginning, but even that isn’t a guarantee. The races include mandatory short and long laps, so it is possible to be leading a race with loads of clear water in front of you only to have a competitor come off a short lap and thwart you by throwing up waves and wake in your face.
Races also include ‘boosts’, where pilots can instantly double their available power from 70 to 140 kW for getting on foil, catching up to another racer or putting some distance between themselves and the boat behind. The complicating factor is that a boost can only be used for a maximum of 20 seconds and whatever length of time the boost is used, it takes double that time for it to be available again. So using 10 seconds of boost, then not being able to access it for another 20 seconds can be an important consideration on a course where the time of a lap is around 60 seconds. Usually only short time boosts are used.
Let’s get to the races!The first stage at an E1 weekend happens on Friday. After brief practice runs come the Qualifying Time Trials followed by a Qualifying Race, or rather races, because both of the sexes have to compete. A quick note here – the E1 is not a ‘male team’ versus ‘female team’ event. The individual races throw males and females together, and there is no discernible difference between their capabilities. The only stipulation is that the two pilots have to alternate each race.
In the Time Trials each of the pilots have a chance to do up to 3 laps, with the best one being added / averaged with the best lap of the opposite sex member of the team to give the standings and pole positions for the Qualifying Races.
Qualifying Time Trials and RaceComing out of the Time Trials at Maggiore the standings were:
Team Rafa (owned by tennis legend Rafael Nadal) Team Drogba (Cote d’Ivoire and Chelsea soccer star Didier Drogba) Team Brady Team AlUla (NBA ace Lebron James) Team Brazil (Brazilian mega entrepreneur Marcelo Claure) Team Aoki (DJ / Producer Steve Aoki) Team Westbrook (Actor / Producer Will Smith) Team Blue Rising (Indian cricket star Virat Kohli) and Team Miami (Singer /Producer Mark Anthony).The first Qualifying Race had the selected female/male pilots from the bottom four teams (Westbrook, Aoki, Blue Rising, Miami) going head to head and the second did the same with the top five: Rafa, Drogba, Brady, AlUla and Brazil. AlUla had a breakthrough race in the Dubrovnik event a few weeks ago and were hoping to follow it up with a strong showing here, but had some bad luck (more would come), crashing into one of the marker buoys and finishing last. After the times were tallied up for all of the Qualifying Races, the standings were: Brady, Rafa, Drogba, Aoki, AlUla, Blue Rising, Brazil, Miami, Westbrook. The top three finishers get bonus points (3 for 1st, 2 for 2nd, 1 for 3rd.)
Saturday’s Group RoundIn the morning Group Round there are two groups, A and B, with four races in total (remember, the female and male pilots race.) In Group A the top team goes against the Qualifying teams that finished 5th, 6th and 7th, so in Maggiore it was Brady against AlUla, Blue Rising, Brazil. In Group B the teams finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th (in this case Rafa, Drogba and Aoki) went against teams 8 and 9 (Miami, Westbrook).
All of this may seem a bit complicated on the face of it, but it makes a lot of sense when you realize that the Series is designed to give as many teams as possible an opportunity to move on to the finals and be a potential winner.
The Group Round is a demanding series of races. There is no ‘pre-scouting’ in the E1 Series. The first time the pilots and their support crew in Mission Control get to go out on any course is during those brief practice runs on Friday mornings that precede the Qualifying Round.
The pilots are backed up with a team of as many as 20 engineers, spotters and advisors and by the time of the Group Round they are all getting more comfortable with the conditions and their strategies, but the conditions are different every time the boats go out on the water – and sometimes change dramatically not just from day to day or morning to afternoon but even race to race.
The Group Races set things up for the countdown to the weekend’s podium winners. Coming out of the stage the winners of Group Races A and B get a bye into the Finals while the teams with the slowest times go into the ‘Place Race’ – sort of the consolation round for 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th place on the weekend.
The five teams in the middle then have a Race Off with the top three going to the Final and the bottom two to the Place Race. So there is big pressure to do well in the Group Races!
Mental lapse in Race A2The big moment in the Group Round was in the second race, when Mashael Alobaidan of Team Blue Rising made a mental error coming out of her short lap and cut out a whole section of the course. As a result, she received a penalty of two long laps and wound up in last place.
Next up, Team AlUla with Rusty Wyatt at the helm received a penalty he couldn’t recover from. There is a running start in each race of the E1, usually of about 50 metres or so (150 ft) and the trick is to be foiling and at top speed to cross the starting line just as the 10 second clock hits zero. In Dubrovnik Wyatt timed it perfectly and it made a big difference in their standings for the weekend, but here he jumped the gun by a split second and received the penalty of having to do an extra long lap – which usually adds about 10 seconds to the overall race time.
The end result of it all was that Teams Brady and Rafa got byes to the finals. Miami and Brazil were off to the Place Race and Teams Aoki, Blue Rising, AlUla, Westbrook and Drogba were in the Race Off. Unlike everything before or after, the Race Off is a do or die competition where there is no second race for your partner to help you out if you have a bad showing. Whichever pilot was last to race in the Group Stage, their team mate is up in the Race Off and the team will go to the glory of the Finals or the consolation of the Place Race.
In Maggiore the Race Off pilots were Mashael Alobaidan (F) for Aoki, John Peters (M) for Blue Rising, Catie Munnings (F) for AlUla, Sara Price (F) for Westbrook and Micha Wilkinson (M) for Team Drogba.
Westbrook, Blue Rising and Aoki to FinalsOn the running start Alobaidan looked like she was eager to make up for her mental lapse in the Group Stage and got the jump over all the others, leaping out into a significant lead. Unfortunately, the timing was just off and she was assessed a long lap penalty. She made a valiant attempt to open up a long enough lead to make up for the extra 10 seconds, but in the end could not catch up to Westbrook and Blue Rising and came in third. Drogba and AlUla were off to the Place Race.
In the first Finals Race, Team Brady with Emma Kimiläinen (F) in the cockpit made the same starting error as Abolaidan, but was a bit fortunate in that both Rafa (Tom Chiappe (M)) and Blue Rising (Sarah Misir (F)) were also assessed penalties and Brady came out on top followed by Westbrook (Lucas Ordóñez (M)), Rafa, Blue Rising and Aoki piloted by Dani Clos.
Collision in Place RaceThe Place Race unfortunately brought about the most dramatic but worrying incident of the weekend. Coming into the first turn there was less than 10 metres between the first and fourth place boats when out of the blue the foiling wing of Team Drogba dramatically dipped into the water thrusting pilot Oban Duncan into the AlUla Racebird of Rusty Wyatt with a sickening thud that quieted the entire crowd. The race safety crew on Taiga electric jetskis were on the scene in an instant and a sigh of relief could be heard as both pilots came out of their boats unscathed. The same could not be said for the Racebirds, however, and the race could not be restarted.
The second Finals to be similar to the first in that Brady pilot Sam Coleman (M) also jumped the start and got off to a quick lead. From there on in, though, it was a clinic on piloting and communications with the team strategists as Coleman used the clear water advantage to build up a sizeable lead that could not be overcome by the others even with the penalty lap.
2025 E1 Championship: Changing StandingsFinal Results of the Lake Maggiore GP had Brady 1, Rafa 2 and Blue Rising 3, putting Brady into third overall with Rafa and Aoki above them. Blue Rising (now in 4th overall) had their best showing of the season and Aoki had one of their most disappointing. All of that means the three remaining races might see any of four or maybe even six teams win the championship.
There are only 65 points separating the top six teams, and with the first place finishers receiving 38 points and second and third getting 30 and 24, this could be very exciting. The next event, in Monaco July 18 and 19 will begin to tell the rest of the story.
E1 Series website
View the E1 YouTube streams of all races How to watch E1 Live in your region
Wilkinson 54 8 Team Miami powered by Magnus Marc Anthony Anna Glennon Erik Stark 27 9 Team Brazil by Claure Group Marcelo Claure Marit Stromoy Timmy Hansen 24
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