November 29, 2019 |
Extreme E will stage first motor race ever in the Himalayas
- Extreme E’s Mountain Round to take place in Nepal’s Kali Gandaki Valley
- This will be the first ever race to be staged in the Himalayas
- The event will help the region deal with urgent climate change challenges
Extreme E has unveiled the fourth location for its pioneering electric SUV off-road race series. The new Mountain Round will take place in Nepal’s Mustang District in the Himalayas.
Alejandro Agag, Founder and CEO of Extreme E announced: “Once again, we’re breaking the mould in motorsport, as Extreme E will become the first race to ever be staged in the Himalayas. It will provide the sternest of tests to the world’s leading drivers, engineers and teams, supporting our aim to promote electric vehicles in the fight against climate change.”
The championship will be held in the deepest gorge in the world in the Kali Gandaki Valley. Located 2,750 meters above sea level, the Mustang District will challenge drivers with elevation changes, coarse gravel, rocky obstacles and turbulent rivers. It comes as the fourth addition to Extreme E’s inaugural 2021 campaign, which already includes stages in the Amazon Rainforest in Para, Brazil, Kangerlussuaq in Greenland, and an unconfirmed location in Saudi Arabia.
As a founding partner and Premium Sponsor of the racing series, Continental will provide the tyres to carry competitors across this variety of challenging landscapes, throughout the entire campaign.
The tyres will be engineered for extreme conditions and deliver the extra robustness required for versatile, off-road terrain, as well as optimised performance for the electric SUVs of Extreme E, as Sandra Roslan, Continental’s Head of Content Marketing and Project Manager for Extreme E, confirms: “With four very exciting and completely different locations, we are looking forward to testing the performance of our tyres on various terrains and surfaces.”
Deepak Raj Joshi, CEO of the Nepal Tourism Board, is excited at the opportunity to showcase the region as one of the most beautiful, yet challenging, terrains in the world. “Driving through our magnificent scenery with Extreme E’s pioneering electric SUVs will be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for the competitors, adventure enthusiasts and the fans watching on,” he says. “It will be some spectacle!”
Extreme E is working with local experts to help protect what is often referred to as the pulse of the planet. According to the UN, Nepal ranks as the fourth most vulnerable country to climate change. With the largest concentration of glaciers outside of the polar caps, Nepal risks losing 66% of its ice due to climate variability, and with it the lifeline of river basins and ecosystems across Asia. Together with the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), Extreme E wants to implement positive legacy initiatives dependent on local needs, promoting sustainable management and increasing regional co-operation.
As Dr David Molden, Director General of ICIMOD, summarises: “We need to do all we can as a global society to raise awareness globally on these issues, and that is why it is important that Extreme E draws attention to this region.”
Continental shares the vision that highlighting landscapes damaged by human interference and climate change will provide a necessary wake-up call. To preserve the environment, a tipping point in the adoption of electric vehicles has to be reached as soon as possible. More information will be revealed over the coming months, as the racing series prepares to launch in February 2021.
Source: Continental
