The World eX Championship was created to combine the entertainment of virtual racing with the strong message of climate protection. It launched with the motto #RacingForTheClimate and is not a copy of a real racing series. It uses all the possibilities that virtual racing offers – including an all-electric race car with 1,000 hp and a unique and entertaining race format which gives real-world racing drivers the chance to fight for race wins and the world championship title.
The inaugural season of the World eX Championship was exciting to the very end. Lasse Sørensen won most of the races in 2021, but he had to admit defeat to Martin Štefanko.
The format of the first world championship for virtual electric racing cars is unique: like in a football world championship, the decision is only made in the final – and on the longest and most difficult race track in the world, the Nürburgring-Nordschleife.The outstanding driver of the first season was Lasse Sørensen. The Danish PRO racing driver won four of the ten regular races and celebrated another victory at the finale on the Nürburgring’s sprint circuit.
However, the likeable Dane “only” secured pole position for the all-important Super Final on the Nürburgring-Nordschleife, for
which all race winners of the first season qualified. The images of the 1,000 hp all-electric eX ZERO on the Nordschleife made fans at home hold their breath in front of their screens. Sørensen extended his lead over Štefanko to more than one second in the first lap. But in the last sector before the Döttinger Höhe,the Williams driver made up ground on the leader and finally overtook him out of the slipstream – it was to remain the decisive overtaking manoeuvre of the season.
Štefanko crossed the finish line as the winner, securing the #racingfortheclimate jackpot for the Letcombe Brook Project supported by Williams Esports. Sørensen was left with the consolation of having almost single-handedly won the team title for Tom Kristensen’s TK9 E-SPeeD team.
TK9 E-SPeeD from Denmark became the 2022 World eX Champions. Lasse Sœrensen showed a brilliant performance in the German eX Prix at the Nürburgring scoring his third win of the season before also winning the all-decisive Super Final on the Nordschleife, sealing the World Championship title for the esports racing team of Le Mans record winner Tom Kristensen.
Sœrensen had been the outstanding driver in Season 1. However, after winning four of the ten regular races, he had been defeated in the Super Final by Williams Esports driver Martin Stefanko. One year later, Esports Racing Team WRT was leading the standings going into the Super Final courtesy of three wins and seven consecutive podium finishes of Devin Braune. The German started the 2-lap Super Final from pole position and kept the lead until the end of Lap 1 before Sœrensen passed Braune out of the slipstream on the “Döttinger Höhe” straight in a similar way he had lost the title to Martin Štefanko in the previous season. Braune was unable to stay close enough to Sœrensen on Lap 2 and had to settle for P2.
For 2022, the format of the World eX Championship had been slightly adjusted, combining the drivers’ and the teams’ classifications to a sole World Championship title. The cars scored the points and the team winning the Super Final clinched the World Championship – including all their drivers and the Team Principal. The 2022 World eX Champions thus became TK9 E-SPeeD from Denmark with their Team Principal Tom Kristensen, their PRO drivers Lasse Sørensen and Andreas Jochimsen, their ESPORTS racers Oskar Kristensen and Rasmus Busk and last but not least Klimaraded – the Climate Preservation Project the Danish team has been promoting in Season 2.
To get the World eX Championship going, the Racing Concept Cars Organisation (RCCO) created the world’s fastest virtual electric racing car on the rFactor 2 platform: the eX ZERO.’ ‘eX’ stands for ‘experimental’, ‘ZERO’ for zero emissions. With 1,000 hp and 1,000 kilograms, the eX ZERO has a power-to-weight ratio of 1:1. Le Mans 24 Hours winner and DTM Champion Mike Rockenfeller was the mastermind behind the development of the eX ZERO, with real-world and esports racing drivers like Romain Grosjean and Devin Braune giving their input on the car’s physics. The aim was to create a car which is challenging to drive even for pros and allows spectacular racing.
The eX ZERO incorporates state-of-the-art electric drive technology, including a 1,000 kWh battery, a twin-motor layout, four-wheel drive, a two-gear transmission and a regen systems which increases the driving time. The car accelerates from 0 to 300 km/h in just 9.5 seconds and is able to reach a top speed of approx. 384 km/h with the lowest drag configuration.
The eX1 cars with 1,000 hp are exclusively competing in the World eX Championship in the hands of some of the world's best PRO racing drivers and ESPORTS racers. In World eX Bizz, drivers are competing with the less powerful eX2 version.
The World eX Championship offers more than just Esports Racing. The virtual racing series wants to make a small but impactful contribution to climate protection. On the one hand, the series proves that races with emission-free racing cars can fascinate people just as much as races with conventional drives. The 1,000 hp electric eX ZERO thrills drivers every time with its sheer power and acceleration.
With an entertaining broadcast show, “Racing For The Climate” draws attention to the climate crisis and encourages viewers to think about how they can contribute to climate protection. When popular racing drivers and Esports racers talk about what they are doing for climate protection during the livestreams, this has a role model effect.
In addition, every team in the World eX Championship is promoting a climate protection project and displays the logos on their own racing cars, generating attention. The climate protection projects supported by the World eX teams in Season 2 were Acer Humanity, Conservation International, Drive Fast – Act Faster, Forest Conservation Kenya, Klimarådet, LAMAVE, Letcombe Brook Project, Planted Green, and World Wide Fund For Nature.
