According to a press release by Extreme E, the brand new off-road electric racing series unveiled its inaugural trophy on Friday, designed by Mariano Pineyrua, who entered the championship’s trophy design challenge.
The trophy design challenge was launched in October 2020 and invited fans to submit their ideas and designs for the series’ Season 1 trophy. The challenge saw more than 100 entries from 31 countries from both children and adults.
Ali Russell, Chief Marketing Officer at Extreme E, said: “I was blown away by the number of people that took the time to design a trophy for Extreme E, particularly as we are yet to go racing. The entrants really understood our brand, which is testament to the hard work of all the team, and there were some truly striking designs that really encapsulated all the elements of the series, from gender equality to environment.”
Among the total number of entries, ten were presented to the judging panel. The judging panel consisted of Catie Munnings, Driver for Andretti United, Jayne Connell, Partner at Interstate and Creative Lead of Extreme E, Drew Feustel, astronaut and geophysicist and Dr Lucy Woodall, Marine Biologist and Extreme E Ocean Scientist. They assessed the designs on the criteria of circular economy, creativity, technicality and the most important Extreme E factor; is the design impactful and does it evoke emotion?
After a lot of deliberation and discussion, they picked Uruguay’s Mariano’s design. The idea is simple yet bold and the trophy itself uses the shape of the Extreme E logo to appear like a sculpture. All of the five X Prix trophies will make use of different material inspired by the environmental crisis the series aim to throw light in that location; stone for the desert and water scarcity, recycled plastic for the ocean, recycled mirror for the arctic, burnt wood for the Amazon rainforest and recycled glass for the thinning ice sheets in glaciers. The final result is a bold trophy complementing Extreme E’s objective of increasing awareness about the environmental crisis using recycled materials.
Mariano Pineyrua, Extreme E trophy design challenge winner said: “It feels awesome to win the Extreme E trophy design challenge, particularly as a designer focused on circular economy and design. I really wanted to showcase the values and purpose of Extreme E with an attractive and innovative trophy. I think this category of racing will be a game-changer in motorsport worldwide and I can’t wait to see the winners lift the trophies. Thank you to Extreme E and the judging panel for choosing my design.”
Jayne Connell, Partner at Interstate and Creative Lead of Extreme E said: “This has been an exciting project to be part of with a very special result. Bringing together art, creativity, entertainment and science with purpose is no easy task. The entries were so imaginative and tough to judge. Credit to all the participants and huge congratulations to Mariano.”
In association with Dutch tech company, 3devo, the trophy will be crafted by utilising consumer plastic waste. 3devo has furnished Extreme E with a full material recycling and processing solution, that makes possible the transformation of plastic waste into filament for 3D printing applications, that also includes the series’ winners trophies.
The inaugural trophy will be presented to the X Prix winner on Sunday 4 April in Saudi Arabia.