Tom Brady team wins Lake Maggiore leg in electric speedboat championship

On the fourth leg of this year’s E1 electric speedboat championship, the team owned by NFL superstar Tom Brady put on an impressive showing to take the top podium spot at Italy’s Lago Maggiore June 27 and 28. Team Brady pilots Emma Kimiläinen and Sam Coleman – champions in the inaugural series last year – grabbed the Pole Position after Friday’s time trials and led from the start in all four Saturday races, grabbing 38 point and jumping to third place in the overall standings. Listen to this article as a podcast The E1 Series is sanctioned by the UIM as the first electric speedboat racing championship in the world. Nine teams, each owned by a high profile personality from sports, entertainment and business, compete in 7 events from January to November. Each event is held over a Friday and Saturday, and each team has a female and male pilot who alternate throughout the qualifying time trials, group races, playoffs and finals. Read Plugboats coverage of all the E1 2025 Races: Jeddah Doha Dubrovnik Monaco As in Formula 1 and Formula E car racing, the hydrofoiling boats –‘Racebirds’ – have identical specs and equipment. Seven metres long, (23 ft) they weigh 1,300 kg (2,900 lb) with a power train that includes a 150 kW (205 hp) electric outboard from Mercury Racing, fast discharge 35 kWh batteries by Kreisel and specialized navigation and marine electronics by Simrad. Click here to open and close a guide to E1 Rules Teams There are 9 teams, each made up of a female and male pilot, but this is not constructed as a female event and a male event, the pilots alternate throughout the event, with their results and times combined to decide the pole positions, winners of each leg, final standings and championship points. The teams are owned by global stars of sports, entertainment and business like DJ Aoki, tennis legend Rafa Nadal, NFL GOAT Tom Brady, actor Will Smith, singer/producer Mark Anthony and Brazilian entrepreneur Marcelo Claure. The events take place over two days. Friday is made up of time trials followed by two Qualifying Races. Saturday has four Group Races, one Race Off, one Place Race and two Finals Races. Friday Time Trials In the Time Trials, the teams are split into a group of 5 and a group of 4. The male or female pilot in each group has three timed laps, followed by their opposite sex teammate taking another three timed laps. Qualifying Races The best times of each team’s female and male pilot are added to determine the team results 1-9 with the teams finishing 6-7-8-9 going into Qualifying Race 1 and the teams finishing 1-2-3-4 going into Qualifying Race 2. The Qualifying Races consist of five laps and the results determine the pole positions for Saturday’s Group Races. Saturday 
Group Races The teams finishing 2nd, 3rd and 4th coming out of the Qualifying Races start off the first Group Race going against the teams finishing 8th and 9th. The second race has the first place finisher going against 5, 6 and 7. THEN, the races are done again with the opposite sex teammates. (Four Group Races in all: Group 1 Stage A, Group 2 Stage A, Group 1 Srage B and Group 2 Stage B)). Each race is 6 laps and has to include 1 long lap and 1 short lap (see ‘Laps’ below). The teams with the fastest times in each of the Groups get a bye into the Finals held later in the day. The teams with the slowest times in each of the Groups go into the Place Race. Race Off 
To determine the other 3 contestants in the Finals and the other 2 contestants in the Place Race, there is a Race Off between the 2-3 finishers of Group 1 and the 2-3-4 finishers of Group 2. The three top finishers of the Race Off go to the finals and the two bottom place finishers go to the Place Race. (NOTE: The Race Off and the Place Race are the only two events where both sexes don’t compete, there is just one race.) Finals Races The Finals has two races with the two winners of the Group Races having pole position 1 and 2 and the other positions set according to results of the Race Off. There are a couple of twists! Laps
 There is not just one lap length, but three: Short (1150 m / 62 Nm / .71 mi), ‘Normal’ (1469 m / .8 Nm / .91 mi) and Long (1687 m / .91 Nm / 1.0 mi). The Time Trials are 1 Normal lap. The Qualifying Races are 6 Normal laps. The Group Races are 6 laps – 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Race Off and Place Race are 5 laps, 1 of which must be a Long Lap and one of which must be a Short Lap. The Finals are like the Group Race – 6 laps including 1 long and 1 short. Boosts Then there are the boosts. Pilots are allowed to draw extra energy out of the battery – for bursts of speed up to 20 seconds. The catch is that the time it takes to prepare for another boost is twice as long as the boost itself. So, if a pilot takes a boost for 10 seconds they will have to wait for 20 seconds before they can take another. Between the lap lengths and the ...