Can Chip Ganassi unlock their potential in Greenland?
With experienced off-road racers Sara Price and Kyle LeDuc at the wheel of the SEGI TV Chip Ganassi Racing team’s ODYSSEY 21 E-SUV in Extreme E season one, many commentators expected the American duo to challenge at the front of the order at each of the five rounds this year.
However, the squad has endured a torrid start to the season. A crash in shakedown at the Desert X Prix in Saudi Arabia put the team on the back foot, before issues in qualifying left them in the Shoot Out race. Working hard to limit the points damage in the Shoot Out, an unsighted LeDuc collided with the ABT CUPRA entry while on a big push and showing great pace, an incident that put both cars out.
The US team again shone in round two at the Ocean X Prix in Senegal where raw pace was certainly not the issue – in fact LeDuc claimed the event’s Super Sector – the award of setting the fastest Sector 2 time over the course of the weekend. But, further technical troubles in qualifying meant Price and LeDuc could only qualify seventh in Senegal, and were again in the Shoot Out race. In that encounter LeDuc made an incredible last lap overtake on both the Andretti United Extreme E and the ACCIONA | Sainz XE machines to win the race.
However, despite the pre-season expectation and the pace shown at both rounds so far, the team is bottom of the standings with 30 points to its credit. Things are close in the classification though and SEGI TV Chip Ganassi Racing is hoping to make a difficult start to the campaign a distant memory this weekend in round three, the Artic X Prix at Kangerlussuaq in Greenland.
“I'm really excited for Greenland; it's a new environment that I've never raced in before,” says Sara Price. “It's the colder side of the world. We're used to racing in the hot deserts living in California and going to Saudi Arabia and Senegal, so I’m looking forward to this challenge. Of course, we haven’t had the best of luck, but we've had some time off and we're hoping to get back at it and keep the momentum going from Senegal. We've been putting in the work, just haven't had the best of luck on our side. The team is raring to go and show what we’re actually made of this time and hopefully come out on top.”
Racing will take place over Saturday (August 28) and Sunday (August 29), including a revised format with five cars set to start the final, new routes to the semi-finals and Intermediate Classification points awarded at the end of qualifying.
The change in format could also shake up the order. “I’m looking forward to racing in Greenland, the biggest thing for our team to think about is a lot of the unknown. The unknown terrain, the unknown landscape” says LeDuc. “It's not a course that's been raced heavily, so it's something completely new in a place that's never really been raced on before. That’s sort of been the case at the previous races, but in both of those locations Sara and I at least had some experience racing in similar terrain. That level of unknown is super exciting for the drivers, for the team, and for the setup of the car. You really have to come in with an open mind to be able to set your car up for something that’s radically different and new, and potentially chaotic. So, I'm just excited to get started tuning our SEGI HUMMER EV.R to try to bring the best car to the race that we can.”
