Penalty dooms Rosberg again, Veloce scores first win at Desert X Prix

In 2022, Rosberg X Racing was easily the top team as the defending Extreme E champion with two wins, but penalties and errors doomed their title defence. Unfortunately for Johan Kristoffersson and Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky, matters did not improve as the 2023 season began when they received a 136-second time penalty in the Grand Final of the first Desert X Prix, relegating them to third.

Veloce Racing capitalised on the penalty to score their first victory in just their second race with Kevin Hansen and Molly Taylor. For Hansen, the win comes as redemption after fracturing his vertebrae during the 2022 Desert X Prix’s Crazy Race.

“To come back to Saudi Arabia and get my first Extreme E win with this new team, with Molly, and in the country that I had such a career changing accident, this is such a highlight,” said Hansen.

“Both of us believe so much in what the engineers and mechanics are doing, so we feel so safe when we get in the car. We believe in what we are going to drive and I think that is also giving some results.”

Although the Rosbergs held the advantage for much of the Grand Final, Åhlin-Kottulinsky sped in a slow area and received the penalty of over two minutes to knock RXR down to third. ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team, with new driver Mattias Ekström and the returning Laia Sanz, finished runner-up. Chip Ganassi Racing and reigning champion X44 retired with mechanical problems.

The race day was the first to ditch the single-car qualifying format in favour of two rounds of heat races, as well as a Redemption Race for the five teams that did not make the Grand Final. The latter ended up seeing a massive wreck when Nasser Al-Attiyah flipped and collided with McLaren’s Tanner Foust, resulting in substantial front damage to the former’s ABT CUPRA machine. The team was permitted to use Extreme E’s spare car primarily delegated for Continental’s tyre tests for Sunday, albeit with a thirty-second penalty in their first heat.

Grand Final results

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	5	Veloce Racing	11:56.291	Kevin Hansen	Molly Taylor
2	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	12:13.000	Mattias Ekström	Laia Sanz
3	6	Rosberg X Racing	14:04.332*	Johan Kristoffersson	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky
4	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	DNF	Fraser McConnell	Cristina Gutiérrez
5	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	DNF	RJ Anderson	Amanda Sorensen

* – Received a penalty

Redemption Race results

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	58	NEOM McLaren XE	28:55.292	Tanner Foust	Emma Gilmour
2	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	29:00.844	Timo Scheider	Christine GZ
3	22	JBXE	DNF	Heikki Kovalainen	Hedda Hosås
4	125	ABT CUPRA XE	DNF	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Klara Andersson
5	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	DNF	Timmy Hansen	Catie Munnings

Qualifying results

Qualifying #1

Heat #1

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	11:32.914	RJ Anderson	Amanda Sorensen
2	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	11:36.298	Mattias Ekström	Laia Sanz
3	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	11:51.577	Timo Scheider	Christine GZ
4	125	ABT CUPRA XE	13:42.040*	Nasser Al-Attiyah	Klara Andersson
5	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	DNF	Timmy Hansen	Catie Munnings

Heat #2

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	11:32.993	Fraser McConnell	Cristina Gutiérrez
2	5	Veloce Racing	11:41.727	Kevin Hansen	Molly Taylor
3	22	JBXE	11:52.093	Heikki Kovalainen	Hedda Hosås
4	6	Rosberg X Racing	11:59.973	Johan Kristoffersson	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky
5	58	NEOM McLaren XE	12:01.721*	Tanner Foust	Emma Gilmour

Qualifying #2

Heat #1

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Lap Time
1	5	Veloce Racing	11:38.038	Molly Taylor	Kevin Hansen
2	6	Rosberg X Racing	11:46.899	Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky	Johan Kristoffersson
3	99	GMC Hummer EV Chip Ganassi Racing	11:52.462	Amanda Sorensen	RJ Anderson
4	23	Andretti ALTAWKILAT Extreme E	12:03.435	Catie Munnings	Timmy Hansen
5	8	Carl Cox Motorsport	11:50.867*	Christine GZ	Timo Scheider

Heat #2

Finish	Number	Team	Total Time	Driver #1	Driver #2
1	55	ACCIONA | Sainz XE Team	11:29.779	Laia Sanz	Mattias Ekström
2	44	X44 Vida Carbon Racing	11:35.123	Cristina Gutiérrez	Fraser McConnell
3	58	NEOM McLaren XE	11:41.126	Emma Gilmour	Tanner Foust
4	125	ABT CUPRA XE	11:48.122	Klara Andersson	Nasser Al-Attiyah
5	22	JBXE	11:55.303	Hedda Hosås	Heikki Kovalainen