Extreme H will make history in October by launching as the first hydrogen-powered motorsport championship officially endorsed by the International Automobile Federation (FIA).
Before the full transition, the series will stage one final event under its Extreme E moniker to celebrate the progress made to date. The focus, though, is already firmly on the future.
As Extreme E, the championship initially used hydrogen fuel cells to facilitate vehicle charging before eventually powering 80 per cent of its event operations with the technology in its most recent season.
The reimagined series will now use hydrogen in every element, from the cars on track to the energy infrastructure that runs the paddock, broadcast and hospitality.
Each team in Extreme H will also continue the gender parity mission started by Extreme E, fielding a male and female driver. That commitment has already delivered tangible progress. In the inaugural season, female drivers were on average 4.5 seconds slower than their male counterparts. By season four, the gap had narrowed to just 1.1 seconds – a reduction of almost 70 per cent.
So how does this evolution set the series up for the future? Ali Russell, managing director of Extreme H, sits down with BlackBook Motorsport to share his perspective.
Before we talk about the future, you’ve got your goodbye to Extreme E. What was the thinking behind giving the series a final send-off?
We’ve had over a year’s differential between the end of Extreme E and the beginning of Extreme H. What we wanted to do is to use some of that brand equity, some of the big fanbase that we had – you’ve got to remember we were close to 150 million broadcast viewers across Extreme E.
So what we want to do is take that brand equity, that fanbase and have a place for them to move to in terms of Extreme H. I know it sounds a small jump, but what we’ve tried to do is keep a lot of familiarity between the two series.
It’s important to communicate to your viewers, to give them an opportunity to see the final lap, so to speak, of Extreme E and then on to the new frontier, which is Extreme H.
A new championship and a new technology come with a lot of unknowns. Some people have safety concerns around hydrogen power in motorsport, what have you done to calm those fears?
We’ve been working in tandem with the FIA for the past two and a half years. We’re always aware that safety has to be of the highest level because we’re asking drivers and fans to get involved in the series here, and it’s important for us to have a safe championship.
When we started Formula E, there were worries about people getting electrocuted or fires because of the batteries and you have to adapt. What that means is a separate set of regulations which all of the teams have to get involved in. Racing is a dangerous sport, so to make it as safe as possible is the responsibility of the FIA and ourselves.
We all relate hydrogen with the Hindenburg [disaster] and the explosive nature of the element, but hydrogen is an incredibly effective way of storing renewable energy. We’re testing it in high heat, high humidity, difficult environments. That sort of extreme testing allows us to show that if it can be done in these sorts of environments then it can work in a city centre.
That’s such an important part here – how do we prove this technology is ready to move forward in consumer vehicles and other usages?
We're excited to announce the FIA Extreme H World Cup – the first ever hydrogen-powered FIA World Cup that will stand at the forefront of both sustainability and diversity in motor sport.#ExtremeHhttps://t.co/Frtm2npChr
— FIA (@fia) September 16, 2025
What sort of runway do you think you’re working with here to prove hydrogen is a viable solution for real-world applications?
We’ve got a very long runway, just as Formula E are still proving electrification, but I think the first year will be the steepest learning curve for everyone involved in the series. It’s pioneering therefore it’s testing the boundaries, and that’s hugely important here. What we want to do is test these boundaries much quicker than has been done to date and the power of motorsport is how can we push the limits with safety always being the core component.
What are your expectations around the first event, especially under this new ‘World Cup’ format?
The challenge we had [with Extreme E] was, because we were using the St Helena to go from point A to point B around the world, the races had such a variability in terms of time span between them that it was hard to build up momentum.
Moving to this World Cup format allows us to have multiple days of racing, multiple types of racing, which is new and innovative. There’ll be rally stages, there’ll be head to heads, there’ll be multi-car racing like we have at the moment. What that allows us to do is build up the championship … akin to how you would watch a football, rugby, cricket world cup.
We’ve got an always-on digital strategy and that’s hugely important, because you’ve got to remember our races are short form. We haven’t gone after a Nascar length or a Formula One length of race, we’ve gone much shorter. We talk about it being targeted to the Snapchat [or] TikTok generation where it’s easy to dip in and out.
How do we jazz it up? How do we make it more consumable for the next generation? The more people we get interested in motorsport, the more we can grow the overall category and develop it and build it as a sport.
Do you have any plans for the frequency of these World Cups and how are you going to build momentum as the Extreme H brand?
I think to begin with we don’t want to bite off more than we can chew. We’re very much a single location, multiple day [event] to increase that frequency of content and entertainment.
Moving forward, we should seek to graduate out very slowly in terms of into other markets which had interest in hydrogen. That may be the same format, might be a demonstration format – we’re looking at a lot of different opportunities to be able to develop that hydrogen message.
What’s your strategy for developing commercial relationships in Extreme H?
We’ve been very thankful that we’ve got a number of partners where there’s a continuation from before, PIF [Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund] have been an incredible partner of ours and continue to do so.
We’ve got the likes of Vodafone Business that have been able to demonstrate connectivity in some of the toughest environments in the world and they continue to have an appetite to work with us. We’ve got the likes of Neom and that’s graduating towards more of an innovation partnership.
Then we’ve got new partners, like Qiddiya that are best known for the fact that they’re coming up with the most exciting Formula One track, but they’ve also got one of the world’s finest amusement parks.
You’re very reliant on the support of Saudi Arabia, so how important is that continued backing for you to develop this new technology?
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has had an incredibly ambitious target, Vision 2030, but it’s about the kingdom’s overreliance on fossil fuels. They’re hugely ambitious in terms of where they’re going and what they’re doing, and hydrogen fits very well into that overall strategy.
When you’ve got a country that is so focused on innovating and moving forward, and you’ve got a championship that is similarly focused, the two become symbiotic in terms of relationship.
Do you think you can take fans with you on this journey?
I might be a biased here, but I think we’ve got the most exciting motorsport proposition that’s been launched in the last 30 years. We are incredibly bullish in terms of our ability to connect with a younger, more dynamic audience and the audience of the future.
What we’re trying to do here is to bring a completely unique innovation into motorsport in terms of a hydrogen racing series, and we think that fans will really enjoy that. We see how popular Formula E has become, which is an electric racing championship. We see no reason why a hydrogen championship like ourselves can’t be equal to that popularity in a very short amount of time.
When we last spoke, you mentioned effectively communicating the transition from Extreme E to Extreme H. Do you think fans are aware of the shift, or is there still work to be done?
I think we’ve got a lot of awareness building. The point here is Extreme H will exist in two weeks’ time. Then it’s about how do we communicate that it’s fast, it’s exciting, that technologies are involved in it, that it’s got men and women, that it’s got opportunities in terms of STEM, that the TV and digital product is really fun and exciting.
I think we’ve got quite a lot to unpack. The opportunity is huge here and it’s how much that we can work with the likes of yourselves, the likes of our broadcast partners [and] social media platforms to be able to spread the messages far and wide.
Yes, we’ve got a World Cup event, but that’s not going to stop us communicating our story and getting people to be more excited about our form of motorsport and what motorsport can lend to the world.
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