Extreme E LIVE: Results and reaction from Desert X Prix final

You might have noticed something that, sadly, is really unusual about international motorsport, in Extreme E: there are equal numbers of men and women driving the cars. Women and men can compete against each other in almost all motorsport - even Formula One - but although there are female drivers, they rarely get opportunities. Extreme E set out to mandate that from the start, because we need everyone involved if we’re going to address climate change.

Tune in on [deep breath] ITV4, BBC Sport’s website and red button, BT Sport, Sky Sports Action and Eurosport 2.

Essentially, what we’ve seen before but with only the three best cars. Three cars go out, racing each other, for two ‘laps’ of the course. As each team has two drivers, they swap halfway through and carry on battling to the end.

There’s been no contact between cars in the semi-final and crazy race but the shootout between the bottom teams saw ABT Cupra and Chip Ganassi - two teams who’ve already had to rebuild their cars this weekend - collide dramatically. The drivers are fine but this shows how quickly it can all go wrong on the sand:

If you’re wondering what “Grid Play” is: well, that’s a good question. It’s a sort of democratic element to Extreme E where teams’ fans can vote to get them more clout in choosing their starting position, if they get through to the final. To be honest, the cars start alongside each other (like in the tweet below) so it has a fairly minimal effect but it’s a kudos-boost to the drivers to get it and another tactical element to play with.

We’re coming up to the final of Extreme E’s inaugural Desert X-Prix but there’s been plenty happening already. If you don’t want to scroll back through four pages of liveblog, here’s our tl;dr: during the qualifying time-trial runs, three teams had major problems. Crashes for Veloce and ABT Cupra effectively ended their weekends, while Chip Ganassi struggled with first broken power steering, then a non-running car. For the teams ahead, working out the kinks of the format proved a problem for Jenson Button’s team, hit with a huge 175-second penalty for incorrectly performing their driver switchover and it was Lewis Hamilton’s X44 and Nico Rosberg’s Rosberg Extreme teams that ultimately fought for pole position. A penalty for Rosberg saw X44 emerge triumphant but Rosberg took the crown back in today’s semi-final, with both teams qualifying to revisit their rivalry in the final. Andretti United had struggled with multiple issues all weekend but emerged victorious from the Crazy Race to join Rosberg Extreme and X44 in the final.

Extreme E’s final race will be broadcast on the BBC, ITV, Sky Sports and BT Sport, so you’ve really got no excuse at all for missing it. But just in case you’re out and about, we’ll of course be bringing you continuous live updates here.