Extreme E may only be three seasons old, but it already stands out as one of motorsport’s craziest, most entertaining racing series, thanks to its unique race format, varied calendar and diverse grid.  

The NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team are in their second season of the all-electric off-road championship and scored their first podium of the year in the fourth round in Scotland.   

Ahead of 2023, Ian James joined as Managing Director of NEOM McLaren Electric Racing, and Gary Paffett as Sporting Director. The NEOM McLaren Extreme E Team, otherwise, remained largely unchanged, with Emma Gilmour and Tanner Foust continuing as teammates, and mostly the same team of hardworking people behind the scenes.  

We spoke to Emma Gilmour ahead of Round 7 in Sardinia, where she discussed the impact of Ian and Gary and why the consistency of personnel around the new management team has been key, as well as the season so far and the 2023 format.  

You are in your second season with McLaren. How much are you enjoying your time with the team, and how pleased are you with the structure in place this year?  

I am really happy to be here in my second season with McLaren. I feel super proud and honoured to represent such an iconic brand, and I still have pinch-me moments when I'm heading into the MTC as a McLaren driver. It's still very, very special to me.  

We built up momentum from last year, so it has been good to be able to continue with Tanner [Foust] as my teammate and with Leena and Teena Gade as our engineering team. We gained a lot of great knowledge in our first season, which we are now building on with all of the data that we have gotten. We get such little track time, and that means that Extreme E is such a data-driven series, so all of the information that we have gathered really speeds up the learning.  

And where do you think we've improved since last season? 

We know where we need to focus our attention now, and we know the areas that can potentially catch you out. That, and we are just generally more comfortable with how a race weekend in Extreme E works.  

However, the new double-header format does make the weekend even more intense. The weekends were always busy, but the mechanics now barely sit still. They’re always looking after the car and working on it, because it is now running three times a day. I have to take my hat off to them because they’re amazing. They’re a small crew, and they’re working in difficult conditions in a small tent.  

With this being the third season of the series, the teams have all gotten more competitive, and the bar keeps getting higher and higher, so we need to keep getting better and better as well. 

And where can we keep getting better?  

It’s about the 1% improvements in every area. We take a lot of learnings away from every weekend and look into what we can do better.  

What are your thoughts on this season’s updated format? It feels like there are now such fine margins between success and failure.  

Yes, and the field is super, super competitive. There are 10 teams, and all of them could win a race. It's all about getting a really good start and then having a clean race. You don’t want to make any mistakes because the penalties can be really hefty. For example, on Saturday in Scotland, we missed out on a place in the final due to a penalty, which was given because we didn’t park 100% correctly in the bay in the Switch Zone, as there was a lack of visibility. This meant we didn’t make the final, and that had a huge impact on our weekend. Those are the margins you’re working too.  

Given the frustration of Saturday in Scotland, how amazing was it to pick up your first podium in the season? 

It was a really nice feeling. We had hoped to score a podium in the first round of the season, but that ended up being quite a difficult weekend. It was a challenging track, and it was very, very difficult to pass on, so we ended up coming away from the first round a little frustrated. We learned a lot from that, though, and it was nice to see it pay off in Scotland.  

We were disappointed not to be in the final on the Saturday in Scotland, so to put everything together on the Sunday and have a relatively smooth run-through to the Final was really rewarding, and it was great to show our pace. I think we were really strong on the Sunday in Scotland, both Tanner and I drove really well. It was a real team effort. 

It was a great example of taking everything we’d learned and putting it into practice. To get on the podium was a nice feeling of redemption and it was such a sweet feeling to be rewarded with a trophy. 

What should our ambitions be for the rest of the season? 

For us, getting into the Final in every round is the aim. As we know, with the nature of racing, anything can happen. If you can get into the Final, then you've got the best chance of getting the best points, and from there, we want to be on the podium. However, you cannot underestimate the challenge of that and the quality of the field that we're competing against.