Here's the Winner of Autoweek's 2023 Vanguard Award, Person

Alejandro Agag has always wanted to change the world, and for much of his adult life he was on a path to doing just that in the world of politics.

Growing up in Madrid—long before the ABB FIA Formula E all-electric open-wheel series would be one of his many pipe dreams—Agag studied economics and was involved in campus politics on his way to eventually becoming a member of the European Parliament by the age of 28.

Agag left the political stage in 2001, and these days defines forward thinking in the world of motor racing and sustainability. Want to know what racing might look like 10 years from now? A good place to start would be to check out what Alejandro Agag is up to today.

Putting a label on the 53-year-old Agag—a man who is more than one step ahead of the crowd when it comes to the marriage of racing and sustainability—isn’t simple. He could just as easily be described as a businessman, racer, or environmentalist.

The Spaniard prefers to rely on his roots for any such label.

“At heart, and it may sound strange, I’m a politician,” Agag says. “Once you’ve been a politician, you’re always a politician. And then I’m a businessman, definitely. And then I’m a racer. So it’s a mix of those three with a very important concern (that) is attention to the environment.

“I’ve always been very interested in environmental problems. I’m not an environmentalist, I’m not an activist. I’m more of a practical person who wants to create real solutions to these massive problems we have, and to do it through the things that I do—which is mainly motor racing now, which is my passion.”

Those passions sparked an idea in 2011 of an all-electric, open-wheel racing series.

“The idea of Formula E came, really, from my intuition,” Agag says. “I was of course working in the world of Formula 1, of combustion racing. And I could pick up here and there in conversations, in replies from potential partners, from engineers in different areas, I could pick up the need to create a sustainable kind of motorsport.

“And of course that was electric.”

Quite an adventure it’s been.

“We had early supporters, brands like Tag Heuer—the watch company. They said, ‘Listen, you may fail on this project, but we’re happy to fail with you because we think it’s such an advanced vision that we just want to be a part of it.’”

Formula E's first season, which kicked off in September of 2014 in Beijing, required teams to field two cars for each driver. The limited range for the electric powerplants called for drivers to jump out of one car at the halfway point of the race and jump into another. That car swap was a staple of the series through 2017 as the teams waited for the technology to catch up to the racing vision.

“Ten years ago, imagine with the first cars we had we needed two cars to finish a race,” Agag said. “We were racing with 100, 150 kilowatts. Now, we’re working on Gen 4 at 600 kilowatts, 800 horsepower and double the distance. So, if you think about it, we have multiplied by eight the performance of these cars in only 10 years. That is massive—800% is just massive improvement.”

The Agag-led Formula E Series has spawned other sustainable racing series, including Extreme E, Extreme H, and the E1 electric boat racing series.

Extreme E is an electric off-road SUV racing series that began competition in 2021. That series will become Extreme H and feature hydrogen-powered SUVs. Extreme H is scheduled to debut with the blessing of the FIA in 2025.

Extreme H will be Agag’s latest gamble and latest jump outside of his comfort zone.

“I believe the hydrogen project is really attractive and is beautiful because of the number of challenges that we have to overcome. There are many, many challenges. Not only inside the car, but outside the car—managing the hydrogen, storing the hydrogen, charging the cars, making sure everything is safe.

“I find it really fascinating. That’s why we get into these projects—because they’re difficult.”

E1, co-founded by Agag and former McLaren motorsport director Rodi Basso, is set to debut its racing boats in January 2024, and already has the backing of such sports notables and E1 team owners as NFL legend Tom Brady and tennis great Rafael Nadal.

Current Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds is also attracted to the visions set forth by Agag, who reminds him of another visionary.

“I was very lucky to have worked at Virgin and got to spend a lot of time with Richard Branson,” Dodds told Autoweek. “Entrepreneurs have a very specific style, a restlessness, a customer centricity, a drive to innovate, to change something, to break new ground.

“And Alejandro for me sits very much in that bucket. Candidly, I would say, he’s not the kind of man you put in an organization that’s at the mature phase of its lifecycle where you’re looking to eke out incremental growth from over 20 years. He wants to do big, bold, exciting, exponential experiments and drive new innovation. He’s a very charismatic man, very partner-centric, loves the teams, loves the product, loves entertainment.”

Those are some labels that Agag is proud to wear.

“There were a lot of people that thought we would fail, but some people joined just for the try,” Agag says. “And luckily, we succeeded.”

Congratulations to Agag, winner of our 2023 Autoweek Vanguard Award, Person.