McLaren will enter Excessive E, an all-electric off-road championship, in 2022 because it expands its McLaren Racing model into new sequence.

McLaren will race alongside groups owned by seven-time F1 world champion Lewis Hamilton and 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg.

The sequence goals to lift consciousness of environmental points by racing all-electric off-road autos in components of the world impacted by local weather change.

Excessive E can be distinctive on this planet {of professional} motorsport because it requires one male and one feminine driver per staff by regulation.

The championship is 2 races in to its five-race debut season, with McLaren because of be a part of at first of the second season subsequent yr.

“From the second Excessive E was introduced now we have been following the progress of the sequence intently,” McLaren CEO Zak Brown mentioned.

“Our consideration was instantly drawn by the progressive format of this motorsport platform, particularly the power it offers us to speed up and enhance our personal overarching sustainability agenda, which shares the identical priorities of decarbonisation, waste discount, range and equality.

“On the identical time, it should allow us to achieve a brand new viewers with an progressive race format, join with a brand new era of followers by content material served throughout a wide range of channels and supply companions with a purpose-led competitors platform to align with and share in a constructive, highly effective narrative.”

McLaren’s entry into Excessive E got here as a shock because it has publicly talked about entries within the World Endurance Championship and the all-electric single seater sequence System E, however had not talked about Excessive E as an possibility.

“All of the totally different racing sequence have totally different attributes, totally different causes and rationale as to why they might or could not match contained in the McLaren Racing portfolio,” Brown defined.

“We have not taken a choice but on these different sequence.

“Why Excessive E? I imagine the franchise can be bought out shortly, whereas while you get into one thing like WEC there is no such thing as a stress to be one in all X quantity of groups, so we felt with the success of the season we did not have the posh of perhaps ready one other six months.

“And likewise the significance of sustainability and variety to McLaren Racing, and with the ability to speed up that program, and demand from our companions, and our want to grasp the applied sciences and study from that.

“So it was for all these causes that we took the choice to enter Excessive E whereas we proceed to judge these different racing alternatives.”

Requested particularly a couple of System E entry, Brown added: “We have not taken any last selections on that but.

“Our possibility goes till the top of yr, so we wish to get this announcement on the market and see what exercise it creates with our followers available in the market place.

“WEC and System E stay underneath overview and we anticipate having some course on each of these later within the yr.”

Brown made clear that the Excessive E entry and McLaren’s current participation in IndyCar wouldn’t detract from the rebuilding of the System One staff, which has recovered from the again of the grid to the midfield lately.

He additionally pressured that the staff’s monetary points, which resulted in a lease again settlement on its manufacturing unit, a £150 million mortgage from the nationwide financial institution of Bahrain and the sale of a big minority shareholding to American buyers final yr, have been behind the staff.

“A hundred percent our monetary state of affairs at McLaren is extraordinarily sturdy,” Brown mentioned. “In fact, now we have to be very diligent and get a return on funding anyplace we spend any cash, whether or not that’s getting into a brand new race sequence or funding a brand new wind tunnel.

“However sure, we’re financially very wholesome, and our competitiveness in F1 is permitting us to have a look at IndyCar and has allowed us to enter into Excessive E, as a result of what we are going to by no means do is distract or detract from our System One efforts.

“IndyCar, Excessive E are all there to complementary entries and assist speed up our System One effort.”

Brown mentioned a choice had not but been made on McLaren’s Excessive E driver line up.

“We have not made any selections but. However what we’re going to do, like in all our racing, is go for the 2 greatest drivers we will get our arms on.”