Christine Giampaoli Zonca will drive for Veloce Racing’s Extreme E team in 2022. The male half of the team will be named at a later date.
In 2021, Veloce employed two female drivers while Jamie Chadwick split her time with the organization between two series: Extreme E and the all-female, single seater W Series. She raced in three of the five rounds. Emma Gilmore ran the other two events. Veloce also had two male drivers sharing car with Stephane Sarrazin running four events and Lance Woolridge competing in the season-ending Jurassic X Prix in Dorset, England.
After withdrawing from the season opener in Saudi Arabia, they finished second in Round 2 in Senegal, but then struggled to find consistency. Veloce Racing finished sixth, eighth and sixth in the final three rounds.
“I’m so excited to be joining Veloce Racing this year,” Giampaoli Zonca said in a release. “They did an amazing job last season after a really tough start in Saudi Arabia, the car looked really competitive across 2021.
“I learned a lot last year and I think that’s important going into Extreme E’s second season. Together with the team, I think we can achieve great things and we’ll definitely be targeting podiums and more.”
Giampaoli Zonca competed with Xite Energy Racing and earned a best result of fifth in the season opener.
“Just like Extreme E has learned and evolved, so have we as a team at Veloce,” said Rupert Svendsen-Cook, Team Principal. “From a driving, as well as a team perspective, the challenges of the series are unique in the world of motorsport – when you consider the very limited mileage achieved throughout a race weekend and ultimately the season, in a totally ‘lift the blindfold and go’ race weekend format with no permitted prior circuit layout knowledge, terrain info or pace notes.
“Naturally this element will become less of a factor in time as we become accustomed to the cars and all teams refine the best way to approach Extreme E’s format – but the ‘reaction to the random’ element as currently implemented is one of the most influential to performance in our analysis.
“With a very short break between Seasons 1 and 2, we’ve not backed off to ensure we kick off 2022 on the right foot and Christine stood out as a driver above all others, who with very limited mileage, made very impressive as well as rapid progress in 2021.
Extreme E kicks off their second season in mid-February in Saudi Arabia before taking a three-month break ahead of Round 2 in Italy.
Extreme E 2022 schedule
February 19-20: Neom, Saudi Arabia
May 7-8: Sardinia, Italy
July 9-10: Scotland or Senegal
September 10-11: Antofagasta, Chile
November 26-27: Punta del Este, Uruguay
