Alejandro Agag’s Extreme E is the first sport with climate crisis at its heart

Motor sport with teams founded by Lewis Hamilton and Nico Rosberg has noble goals but also stages races in Saudi Arabia

Alejandro Agag laughs in his smooth and charming way when I read out a quote which suggests that, as the founder and chairman of Formula E and the driving force behind Extreme E, the new environmentally conscious motor sport venture, he is closer in spirit to Alan Sugar than Greta Thunberg.

“I appreciate the important message that activists like Greta Thunberg convey and it makes our life easier because they raise awareness,” Agag says. “But we are a different kind of environmentalist. They are the ones who say that change is needed. We are the ones who make change happen in the real world. You cannot make it in the idealised world.”