The qualifying results determine to which second-round race each teams advances: first, fourth and fifth place progress to semi-final 1 second, third and sixth advance to semi-final 2 and teams finishing in seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth go to the "Crazy Race". Championship points were awarded for overall qualifying in season one.
Round one of qualifying is a two-lap time trial, while round two consists of two five-car heats, with both drivers in a team doing one lap each, and the finishing position contributes towards the combined results from both rounds, based on intermediate points (10 for the time trial winner down to 1 point for the last-placed team 10, 8, 6, 4 and 2 for the heats).
Then, on Sunday, a series of actual races with multiple cars take place to determine the event winner. Under the current format, racing starts on Saturday with one round of qualifying time trial and another of qualifying races. The format of the Extreme E race weekend evolved over the course of the first two seasons.
The driver switch takes place in a designated "switch zone", where a speed limit and a minimal switch time are enforced for safety reasons. In each session, the team must complete two laps of the course (three for the Jurassic X-Prix due to its shorter distance), with both team member driving one lap (or two-and-one for the Jurassic X-Prix). Teams consist of one female and one male driver, who share equal driving duties. The first season is expected to take place in 2024, alongside Extreme E's fourth season. Development of the first Extreme H prototype car is underway, scheduled for a 2023 launch. Prior to the 2022 season's opening race, Agag announced the creation of a similar off-road electric championship called Extreme H, which uses the usual Spark Odyssey 21 chassis, but the car will be powered by hydrogen. The season will end in November 2022 in Uruguay. The second season started in February 2022, again in Saudi Arabia. Main article: 2022 Extreme E Championship The St Helena departed from Liverpool on 20 February 2021, carrying equipment and 9 cars for the first race in April and arrived in Jeddah on 14 March. A joint test with eight teams and a race simulation was held at MotorLand Aragón in December. The teams were limited to 100km of private testing. In November 2020, the vehicles were delivered to the teams, who could then apply their liveries and acquaint themselves with the car and its operations. A six-day drivers' test was held near the Châteaux de Lastours in southern France in late September and early October, featuring among confirmed series drivers some well-known racing drivers like Valtteri Bottas, Sébastien Loeb and Jean-Éric Vergne. Former F1 champion and Hamilton's longtime team-mate and rival Nico Rosberg also entered his own team into the competition with Rosberg X Racing, as did fellow champion Jenson Button with JBXE Button also drove the 2021 Desert X-Prix for his team.
In 2020, the series started to attract attention by having Ken Block race the Extreme E car at the last stage of the Dakar Rally in January and in September Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton announced the creation of his own Extreme E team, called X44. In July 2019 a first prototype of the series vehicle, the Odyssey 21, was showcased at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and in December 2019 the provisional calendar for the first season in 2021 has been revealed, featuring races in Senegal, Saudi Arabia, Nepal, Greenland and Brazil. A couple of months later, German team Abt Sportsline was the second team to join the series.
The first team to commit to the series, Venturi Racing, was announced in May 2019 (although they withdrew again before the first season). Ali Russell was named Chief Marketing Officer, while Red Bull sports executives Kester Wilkinson and Nina Dreier signed on as event and marketing managers. The announcement took place on board of the ship St Helena which was to serve as "floating paddock" of the series, and also introduced Continental as tyre supplier and Brazilian company CBMM as niobium supplier for the vehicle production. The series was presented to the public in January 2019 with an event in London. Extreme E began in 2018 as a project led by Formula E founder Alejandro Agag and former driver Gil de Ferran.