(CNN)Formula 1 World Champion Lewis Hamilton has announced that next year he will participate with a team in the first all-electric off-road racing series Extreme E.
Extreme E is a series founded by the same team behind Formula E, with races around the world to promote electrification, sustainability and equality.
The first season will take place in five remote locations already damaged or affected by climate issues, including the Arctic and the Amazon, to raise awareness of climate change.
Hamilton, 35, called the opportunity to have his own team an “exciting new project” and said the series appealed to him for its “environmental focus”.
“Each and every one of us has the power to make a difference and it means so much to me to be able to use my love of racing along with my love for our planet to make a positive impact,” he said in a statement.
“I’m excited for the team to be a part of this new series and I think it’s incredible that we can do so while raising awareness of the climate crisis.”
Six-time World Champion’s team, X44, is named after its F1 car number and will enter the inaugural season of the Extreme E Championship. The first X-Prix race is scheduled to take place in early 2021.
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Hamilton has long been an advocate for a greener world. In a series of messages posted to his Instagram account last year, he called the world “chaos” and wrote that he would like to “give it all up” before encouraging everyone to go vegan.
Extreme E will work with scientific experts from the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge to raise awareness of specific issues such as rising CO2 emissions, melting ice caps, deforestation, desertification, drought, plastic pollution and rising sea levels.
Each race consists of two laps of approximately 16 kilometers (10 miles) with two riders – a man and a woman – completing one lap each.
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The races are closed to spectators to minimize the impact on the environment. Instead, the fans follow the action on television.
The command center for the Championship Series will be aboard the RMS St Helena, a ship undergoing a multi-million euro rebuild to minimize emissions and transform it into the operations center of the Championship.
X44 is the seventh team to sign up, alongside Chip Ganassi Racing, Andretti Autosport, Abt, HWA, Techeetah, QEV Technologies and British team Veloce Racing.
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