Lotus teams up with Jenson Button's Extreme E race team

Lotus Engineering has announced it is joining forces with JBXE Racing for this year's Extreme E off-road racing series that kicks off on April 3.

JBXE Racing was founded by Formula 1 world champion, Jenson Button, earlier this year and has signed up Lotus to act as technical partner.

Button, who was crowned world champion back in 2009, left F1 in 2015 and has subsequently raced in both Japan's Super GT and sports car racing, has announced he will drive for the JBXE race team alongside multiple Scandinavian Touring Car race winner Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky.

Full details about how the technical partnership between Lotus Engineering and JBXE will work has yet to be confirmed.

It's unlikely the British firm will have much scope to innovate with the JBXE team. Extreme E racers are made up of heavily regulated parts designed to ensure racing is as close as it can be.

Standard components include a pure-electric powertrain that produces 400kW and 920Nm – enough for a 200km/h top speed and a 0-100km/h sprint time of 4.5 seconds.

The battery pack, meanwhile, has been developed by Williams Advanced Engineering.

With plenty of experience accrued while developing the Lotus Evija hypercar, it's thought Lotus could work on final powertrain calibration, but its chief task will most likely involve setting up the 4.4-metre-long SUV for the five extreme destinations across four continents the racers will tackle.

Helping the Extreme E racer handle the harsh environments, the off-roader has suspension travel of up to 385mm.

Claimed to be capable of climbing gradients of up to 130 per cent, the biggest hurdle Lotus will need to overcome is managing the off-road racer's obese 1650kg kerb weight.

Commenting on its involvement in the new zero-emissions motorsport series, Lotus boss Matt Windle said: "We are on the cusp of an exciting new era of electrified motorsport, and we’re delighted to support the JBXE team as technical partner.

"The complex technicalities of EV racing present a fascinating challenge, and using our learnings from more than a decade of electrifying sports cars – most recently with the Lotus Evija hypercar – we can bring valuable knowledge to the team."

Button said: “Extreme E is a unique and exciting formula, full of world-firsts and challenges, and to announce that a brand such as Lotus Engineering is coming on this journey with us is a proud moment for myself and the team.

"We are very excited about our new technical partnership and can’t wait to show what we can do in the first race this weekend.”