ACCIONA Sainz completes Desert X Prix first-time winner sweep

The 2022 Extreme E season saw four teams win a Final. While the 2023 season is twice as long thanks to the new doubleheader format, it already has two different victors in as many races.

Carlos Sainz‘s ACCIONA | SAINZ XE Team is the newest team to add their name to the all-time win list when Mattias Ekström and Laia Sanz held off Saturday winner Veloce Racing in the Grand Final. The victory finally got the team over the hump after coming close with a pair of runner-up finishes in 2022, while Ekström notched his maiden victory in just his second race with the outfit, having replaced Sainz for 2023 due to injuries his Audi rally raid team-mate sustained at the Dakar Rally in January.

“What a great weekend at Extreme E. Driving for Carlos’ team already felt special, but bringing home P2 and team’s first ever WIN was just amazing,” tweeted Ekström. “Laia drove incredibly and the whole #AccionaSainz team did a great job. Let’s continue like this.”

The win came after a very close call in qualifying as ACCIONA | Sainz barely made the Grand Final on a tiebreaker. The team had tied with X44 for fifth in the classification after two rounds of heats at twelve points apiece, aided by X44 receiving a 3.7-second penalty in their second heat for Cristina Gutiérrez speeding in the switch bay that relegated them from third to fourth.

Veloce had dominated Sunday’s qualifying by winning both of their heats. With Veloce and ACCIONA | Sainz trading firsts and seconds in both days’ Grand Finals, they are tied atop the standings. Rosberg X Racing sits third after taking the last step of the podium for both Finals.

Despite missing out on the Final, X44 easily claimed the Redemption Race with ten seconds over McLaren. JBXE finished at the bottom of the classification after Hedda Hosås rolled in the consolation race.

Andretti ALTAWKILAT had a particularly difficult weekend after rolling twice on Saturday before Kevin Hansen did so again in Heat #1 of the second round. The team mustered a third in the Redemption Race.

Grand Final results

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	11:10.821	Mattias Ekström	Laia Sanz
2	5	Veloce Racing	11:16.348	Kevin Hansen	Molly Taylor
3	6	Rosberg X Racing	11:18.250	Johan Kristoffersson	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky
4	125	ABT CUPRA XE	11:18.808	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Klara Andersson
5	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	11:33.142	RJ Anderson	Amanda Sorensen

* – Received a penalty

Redemption Race results

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	11:10.132	Fraser McConnell	Cristina Gutiérrez
2	58	NEOM McLaren XE	11:20.282	Tanner Foust	Emma Gilmour
3	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	11:43.428	Timmy Hansen	Catie Munnings
4	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	13:53.666*	Timo Scheider	Christine GZ
5	22	JBXE	DNF	Heikki Kovalainen	Hedda Hosås

Qualifying results

Round #1

Heat #1

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	5	Veloce Racing	11:25.061	Kevin Hansen	Molly Taylor
2	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	11:27.838	Fraser McConnell	Cristina Gutiérrez
3	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	11:28.131	Timmy Hansen	Catie Munnings
4	125	ABT CUPRA XE	12:34.105	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Klara Andersson
5	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	DNF	Timo Scheider	Christine GZ

Heat #2

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	6	Rosberg X Racing	11:27.999	Johan Kristoffersson	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky
2	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	11:28.995	RJ Anderson	Amanda Sorensen
3	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	11:29.614	Mattias Ekström	Laia Sanz
4	58	NEOM McLaren XE	11:40.046*	Tanner Foust	Emma Gilmour
5	22	JBXE	11:40.341	Heikki Kovalainen	Hedda Hosås

Round #2

Heat #1

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	5	Veloce Racing	21:02.544	Molly Taylor	Kevin Hansen
2	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	21:09.941	Amanda Sorensen	RJ Anderson
3	58	NEOM McLaren XE	21:16.34	Emma Gilmour	Tanner Foust
4	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	21:19.993	Christine GZ	Timo Scheider
5	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	DNF	Catie Munnings	Timmy Hansen

Heat #2

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	125	ABT CUPRA XE	11:22.546	Klara Andersson	Nasser Al-Attiyah
2	6	Rosberg X Racing	11:27.189	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky	Johan Kristoffersson
3	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	11:29.295	Laia Sanz	Mattias Ekström
4	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	11:32.391*	Cristina Gutiérrez	Fraser McConnell
5	22	JBXE	11:34.222	Hedda Hosås	Heikki Kovalainen