Tokyo Sexwale co-founds Elite World Cup series for electric cars

An international electric sports car racing series called the Elite World Cup was announced in Johannesburg on Monday.

The announcement came a few hours ahead of the Brics summit at the Sandton Convention Centre.

The one-make series will be contested in Lotus Evijas with up to 25 national teams competing. The Elite World Cup aims to have 18 countries for its debut season of eight races starting in September or October 2024, growing to 25 countries competing over 10 events in season two.

The championship was cofounded by three players in the A1 Grand Prix World Cup of Motorsport from 2005-2009. Liu Yu and Tokyo Sexwale, the former seat holders of the national A1GP teams from China and SA respectively, have joined forces with the championship’s general manager during its first two seasons, Stephen Watson.

“The Cup is called Elite for a reason as we will engage and invite experienced international racing car drivers that have competed across F1, Indy Car, NASCAR, WRC and the likes,” says Watson, a former Formula 3000 racer.

“We want the drivers and teams who have established themselves and represented their countries in various prestigious motorsport championships around the world.”

The Evija is one of the world’s most powerful electric sports cars with an output of 1,500kW and the ability to scorch the 0-300km/h sprint in just over 9 seconds,

“A1GP very quickly became a kind of junior formula, a stepping stone for young drivers,” Watson told Motorsport.com at Monday’s launch.

“We know what having a big name representing their country does for a series from A1GP times: when Jos Verstappen was driving for the Dutch team, the dunes at Zandvoort for his home race were a sea of orange.

“That is why we are calling this the Elite World Cup, because we want the most distinguished and highest profile drivers possible from each country.”

Each national team will require a minimum of two drivers. Race weekends will be made up of a sprint race on the Saturday of about 40 minutes, before a mini-endurance race of about one hour and 20 minutes on Sunday.

The relay-style races will be replaced on track by the team’s second entry when one car pits.

Watson told Motorsport.com the decision not to follow the single-seater route had been taken to give the series a unique selling point.

“I think that space is completely captured with the success of F1 and we didn’t want to go the route of replicating A1GP with EVs because there is already Formula E out there,” he said.

“An electric hypercar will resonate more with the man on the street because it is closer to something you can see on the road, and it also appealed to our investment group, which is predominantly Chinese.”