America finally got its E1 Series moment Saturday, November 8, when the world’s first electric boat racing championship turned Biscayne Bay into a futuristic battlefield. Miami asked for spectacle and got hydrofoiling rockets screaming across the water at 50 knots, Will Smith wielding champagne like a Super Soaker, and Tom Brady doing what Tom Brady does—winning when it matters most. The series’ long-awaited U.S. debut doubled as its 2025 season finale, with Brady’s team clinging to a precarious three-point lead heading into Saturday’s showdown. By sunset, they’d survived a final-race thriller against Rafa Nadal’s squad to claim back-to-back world titles, proving the GOAT can dominate any playing surface—even one that flies three feet above the Atlantic.
For the E1 uninitiated, imagine Formula 1 on water, but cleaner and more futuristic. E1 features nine teams racing identical electric boats called RaceBirds around tight, technical courses marked by inflatable buoys. At around 25 feet long and weighing 1,750 pounds, each RaceBird rises completely out of the water on computer-controlled hydrofoils—essentially underwater wings—once they hit about 18 knots. Then they accelerate to nearly 50 knots (around 60 mph) while “flying” three feet above the surface, powered by a 150 kW electric motor that sounds like a high-pitched turbine rather than a traditional engine roar. Races last about 12 minutes, with pilots wrestling these levitating missiles through hairpin turns while managing battery power and foil angles.
The whole thing started, perhaps improbably, during London’s Covid-19 lockdowns. When you could only walk with one other person, series co-founders Alejandro Agag and Rodi Basso were strolling along the Thames. “We were walking next to the Thames… we saw the river, we said, ‘We should try to do something on the water,’” Agag told the crowd during Thursday’s leaders’ summit panel at the E1 Ocean Club. That riverside epiphany spawned E1—basically Formula E’s aquatic cousin. Brady’s entry was, well, pure Brady. Meeting Agag at Miami’s Fontainebleau Hotel, the seven-time Super Bowl champion asked one pointed question: “If all boats are the same, how can I have a better chance to win?” Agag recalled. The answer—through superior people and processes—became Team Brady’s religion. “In sports, good is not good enough. In order to win sports, you need to be great,” Brady said from the summit stage. “In order to be great, you have to have the determination and drive every single day.”
The weekend transformed Biscayne Bay into Monaco’s electric cousin—all the yacht-club glamour and racing prestige of the Mediterranean’s most famous harbor, but with silent speed machines instead of roaring engines. Bombay Sapphire, making its debut as the series’s first-ever spirits partner, essentially owned the hospitality experience. Their Ocean Club activation doubled as command central for the see-and-be-seen crowd, with bartenders mixing up the zesty signature Bombay Sapphire Sparkling Lemon cocktail. “This is the first sports partnership that Bombay Sapphire has entered into,” its North American president, Tony Latham, explained during the panel, citing three key reasons: “First of all, the pioneer spirit, which is really at the core of Bombay Sapphire and the Bacardi family. Secondly, that sustainability angle. Bombay Sapphire is the first international gin that sources all of its botanicals sustainably.” The third? Creating “phenomenal experiences.” Plus, Bacardi’s North America headquarters are in Miami.
<img decoding="async" class="lazyload size-full-width wp-image-1599319" src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==" data-src="https://observer.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/11/BFA_52281_7558755.jpg?quality=80&w=970" alt="" width="970" height="693" data-caption='Grace Van Patten. <span class=”lazyload media-credit”>Diana Zapata/BFA.com</span>’>
The crowd on Saturday looked straight out of Basel weekend. Grace Van Patten, the star of Tell Me Lies and The Twisted Tale of Amanda Knox series, worked the waterfront deck in a silky Dôen dress, styled by Ryan Young. The actress, who’s become a fixture at U.S. Open matches, was actually tracking the race standings between Bombay Sapphire toasts. Will Smith kicked things off with his inevitable “Welcome to Miami,” then absolutely soaked everyone with champagne when Brady’s team won. On the water, the pilots were rewriting their own resumes. “It’s more like flying, to be honest,” Emma Kimiläinen told the panel, laughing at the absurdity of her career pivot. The Finnish driver went from Formula racing to E1 despite having “actually never, ever driven a boat before E1” and—get this—admits, “I’m seasick, too.”
“There is not a moment in the boat that we’re not doing anything,” she explained. “You need to adjust the setup of the boat, like with the wheel, you have the paddles in the wheel and everything to adjust the engine, and you need to do it constantly. So it’s very sensitive, very fun, challenging, and I love it.”
What she’s describing is essentially aerial combat on water. Pilots control the foil angles through steering wheel paddles while simultaneously managing throttle, battery deployment and racing lines. One wrong input and the boat can nose-dive or launch skyward—both spectacular for Instagram, but terrible for lap times. Since every team gets identical equipment—same hull, same battery, same foils—it really is all about the drivers and data. Speaking of data, Cambridge Mobile Telematics CEO Bill Powers was practically giddy announcing his company’s four-year extension with Team Brady. “We’re a mobile sensor company, and track anything that moves,” he said during the panel. Powers admitted Brady’s initial pitch two years ago caught him off-guard: “I was like, ‘Tommy, what do you mean, racing boats? What the hell do I know about racing?’” But he got hooked on the sustainability mission and global reach. “Tonight, we announced an extension of our contract for four years,” Powers revealed.
The sustainability angle had real teeth. Alex Schulze from 4ocean broke down Team Brady’s Race for Change pledge: “For every point scored, we’re removing [more than 200 pounds] of plastic from the ocean in partnership with Team Brady.” That’s “15 tons of waste that we removed from the oceans this season only,” Kimiläinen shares. They’re doubling to 100,000 pounds next year. Brady’s commitment runs personal. Brady’s 15-year-old son got him involved with MrBeast’s Team Seas initiative years ago, leading Brady to become a major donor. Even between races, the team walked the walk: Yesterday, Brady’s pilots hit a local island with trash bags, cleaning up barbecue debris left by boaters. “I’m a crazy recycling lady. I recycle absolutely everything,” Kimiläinen admitted.
Agag’s already plotting world domination. During the Q&A, he mentioned looking at “New York, San Francisco. I’ve never been to a place called Lake Tahoe, but I’d love to do a pretty cool race there.” Saturday’s finale proved the concept works. These boats look like something from 2050, the competition’s legitimately intense, and the whole paddock scene, anchored by Bombay Sapphire’s endless flow of botanical cocktails, feels like Formula 1 crashed a South Beach day club. As Kimiläinen put it: “You have to watch it happen.” Miami watched. And when Brady’s team crossed the finish line, Will Smith’s champagne shower confirmed what everyone suspected: this electric armada might actually stick around.
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