Host broadcaster for the FIA Extreme H World Cup, Aurora Media Worldwide, has evolved its production strategy for the new racing series from its predecessor, Extreme E into the new realm of hydrogen-fuelled motorsport.
“I’ve never worked in a production where every department is so reliant on everybody else”
With the first Extreme H held immediately after the final ever Extreme E in Qiddiya, Saudi Arabia – the Final Lap from 4 to 5 October 2025 and Extreme H from 9 to 11 October – the team had to take what it had learned from the electric series and push it into a multi-discipline, multi-day event that saw the production having to switch gears in rapid succession.
Calibration of departments
As to how Aurora has evolved its production strategy and taken what it has learned from Extreme E into Extreme H, Matthew Beal, chief broadcast officer at host broadcaster Aurora Media Worldwide, says the integration of all teams involved in the sport to develop everything – from the track shape and direction, through to capturing those epic shots – is still key.
“What we learned on Extreme E, and now into Extreme H, is I’ve never worked in a production where every department is so reliant on everybody else. Often I won’t meet the track build guys or the people who are looking after the football pitch, or the people looking after the tennis court at Queens.
“Whereas on Extreme E and Extreme H, we go and design the course from the day one with the sporting guys from Guy Nicholls, [head of sporting at FIA Extreme H] to Timo Scheider the racing driver [for Carl Cox Motorsport in Extreme H], and JT – James Taylor – the head sporting at Extreme H. We go there from a creative and a broadcast point of view, so myself and the tech director design the tracks altogether.”
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On the course itself, once the layout was decided the team initially thought the cars should travel around it anticlockwise. However, bringing in the broadcast perspective, Beale and his team at Aurora realised that for the time of day the races would be running, they would get better, more dramatic shots if it ran clockwise.
Notes Beale: “We said we can get these views at these times of day, with this light behind, and we can aesthetically adjust the track so that if the car moves in X direction, the camera shot will get Y.”
The conversation continued between the host broadcaster, drivers and the Extreme H team, with adjustments for aesthetic and safety reasons to ensure the best product and the best race was had by all.
“This calibration of the different departments all working together from Extreme E has carried on into Extreme H,” says Beale. “And that’s why that track and that product you see in the dramatic racing is by design. It doesn’t happen by one department working on their own and then handing off the concept and saying, “here you go, film it”.
“From day one working on the event, us as a production company working hand in hand with the other partners and the other departments create the product. So that was a massive learning from and value we took from Extreme E and imported into Extreme H.”
Capturing the action
Once the tracks were designed, it was down to Aurora to work out how to capture the action. It used two drones, says Beale: “We know we want to flip between two drones, which we have at our disposal. We have a first person view (FPV) drone and we have a four-prop wider overview drone.
“The reason we have both and the ability to change between both is we want different things at different times. Sometimes you want a big chase, but if you’re chasing and you’re down with them, the dust and the dirt looks brilliant, but you’re losing the challenge of driver versus environment, because you can’t see the environment as much. So we learned we wanted to pivot between different types of drones at different times and change quickly.”
Connectivity has been improved as well, notes Beale. “We also moved from an overall RF network, to this time, we ran everything off a fibre-based standard system. So again, what we’ve worked with the track build guys to instal the fibres beforehand.
Pressure was on
On the race days, the pressure was on for Aurora, which now had to pull off what was essentially multiple broadcasts back-to-back in the same place, but on different tracks. Says Beale: “We were in one location and we knew we would be pivoting between these different tracks very quickly, overnight.
“On day one of the event we were on the multi-car Head-to-Head course, then we went to day two on the Head-to-Head course, so a completely different set of cameras in different locations.
“And then we moved back to the multi-car course, but with a tweak because the course was slightly different, so we had to pre-install all the cable runs pre-track build, so we were all ready to go so everything could traverse overnight and then traverse back again as we pivoted between the two courses.”
Part of being able to capture the action was also about developing an understanding of what the new cars for Extreme H were able to do, how that differed to what they were used to seeing in Extreme E, and how the vehicle design itself could bring new data and insights to the production.
Says Beale: “We had to work out what the cars are capable of. They’re a bit stronger, as the build of the cars [in Extreme E and into Extreme H] has evolved at the same time [as the production]. [The car manufacturer] took a lot of learnings from Extreme E and put it into the Extreme H car, so from where the seats sits, to where you can adjust the foot pedals and the controls to go between male and female drivers quicker; they took gender parity to learnings in the car as well. That means we could see improved lap times on Extreme H compared to Extreme E.”
Educational updates
On graphics, educational pieces about the environment, sustainability and how the motorsport works towards helping in those areas is still key, but Extreme H is also moving more into features. “We also learned on the graphical side how we wanted to take on Extreme H as a new brand, which had to be integrated to a dynamic graphics pack, so it felt like an evolution,” says Beale.
“One of Extreme E’s principles and one of the stories we wanted to tell was about the environment, those ecological issues, those progressive issues that are happening and how the Championship was working with the local community and stakeholders in region, and that’s still happening.
“But with Extreme H, we made features and spoke a lot about the technology, how the car technology and hydrogen is moving forward, and that’s where this Championship sits. We wanted to show off the virtues of hydrogen not only as a fuel and a propulsion system for vehicles or mobility, but also how hydrogen fuel cells are powering the paddock, powering the net network on site; the microgrid. Clean energy is the ability to move energy around and its ability to power mobility. Some of the narratives that we told throughout the shows were about this technological innovation of hydrogen and how it’s going to be a wider part of our lives beyond having a hydrogen car.”
