High-Speed Hydrofoils and Hollywood Heavyweights: Will Smith’s Westbrook Racing Ascends to the E1 Championship Summit in Dubrovnik

Executive Overview

The global motorsports landscape is undergoing a silent yet seismic revolution, and its epicentre is currently located in the turquoise waters of the Adriatic Sea. This past weekend, the historic and romantic backdrop of Dubrovnik, Croatia, played host to the third round of the 2026 E1 World Championship—the world’s premier all-electric hydrofoiling speedboat series.

When the checkered flag fell over the medieval stone walls, copper-green domes, and terracotta roofs of Dubrovnik’s Old Town, it was Angola Westbrook Racing—owned by Hollywood icon Will Smith—that emerged victorious. Piloted by the formidable duo of Sara Price and Lucas Ordóñez, the Westbrook team secured a landmark victory that propelled them past two-time reigning champions Team Brady, owned by NFL legend Tom Brady, into the pole position of the overall 2026 season standings.

With 101 championship points now safely in their ledger, Smith’s squad leads Brady’s outfit by 12 points, while Team AlUla, championed by NBA superstar LeBron James, sits comfortably in third.

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Beyond the glamorous Hollywood and athletic star power lining the docks—featuring attendance from LeBron James, Kyle Kuzma, and tennis titan Rafael Nadal—the Dubrovnik Grand Prix served as a masterclass in zero-emission marine engineering. Combining high-stakes athletic competition, strict gender-equality mandates, and a profound commitment to coastal ecosystem preservation, the E1 Series is rapidly proving that sustainable technology and elite sports entertainment can coexist at speeds touching 90 km/h (50 knots).

Detailed Chronology: The Dubrovnik Grand Prix Weekend

Friday Qualifying: Navigating the Deceptive Adriatic

The Adriatic Luxury Hotels E1 Dubrovnik GP 2026 got underway under conditions that were as visually breathtaking as they were technically treacherous. While the waters off Old Town shimmered under the Croatian sun, they hid a complex maze of deceptively challenging hydrodynamic obstacles.

Unlike the calm, freshwater venue of Lake Como, Italy—where Westbrook claimed their only previous victory—Dubrovnik presents a volatile racecourse. Large rollers converge from multiple directions, fed by the deep open waters of the Adriatic and amplified by back-waves crashing off the ancient stone fortifications. Compounding the turbulence, unpredictable winds sweeping down from the coastal mountains create localized chop that disrupts the delicate balance required by hydrofoiling vessels.

Despite the environmental hurdles, Friday’s qualifying sessions unfolded largely as form dictated. Westbrook Racing, Team Brady, and Steve Aoki’s Aoki Racing Team locked down the top three positions in qualifying, mirroring their exact standing in the overall season championship. Sara Price and Lucas Ordóñez demonstrated an intuitive understanding of the shifting water states, setting the stage for a dominant Saturday performance.

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Saturday Group Stages and the Race Off

Saturday’s racing introduced the intense elimination format that defines E1 weekends. Divided into Group A and Group B based on Friday’s time trials, the ten teams took to the water for a grueling six-lap format that mandates strategic deployment of short laps, long laps, and energy boosts.

Sara Price continued Westbrook’s stellar weekend in the Group Stages, dominating her heat and securing a direct bye straight into the Finals. "This is amazing for our team," a jubilant Price remarked post-race. "I don’t think we’ve ever actually won qualifying." They were joined in the Finals by their arch-rivals, Team Brady, whose pilots Emma Kimiläinen and Sam Coleman similarly topped their respective group to maintain fierce pressure at the top of the leaderboard.

Drama, however, was never far behind. Team Drogba Global Africa, owned by former Chelsea star and Ivory Coast World Cup captain Didier Drogba, suffered a devastating blow. Despite a brilliant group win by New Zealand pilot Micah Wilkinson, a costly disqualification for dangerous driving handed to his co-pilot—four-time Spanish Olympian and world champion sailor Tara Pacheco—slammed the door on the team’s championship aspirations for the weekend, eliminating them from finals contention.

In the subsequent Race Off—designed to salvage final berths for the remaining mid-tier teams—Tom Chiappe of Rafael Nadal’s Team Rafa delivered a virtuoso performance. His steering masterclass earned him the coveted PIF Pilot of the Day honor, dragging his team into the Finals against the odds. They were joined by Team AlUla, Team Miami (powered by Marc Anthony), and the resurgent Team Monaco.

The Finals: Climax on the Waves

The E1 final format requires a masterclass in aggregate consistency, comprising two distinct races where the times of the female and male co-pilots are combined to crown the weekend winner.

• Final 1: Team Brady struck first blood. Emma Kimiläinen executed a textbook start, beating Westbrook’s Sara Price to the opening turn and maintaining defensive mastery across the circuit to secure a crucial early psychological and metric advantage.
• Final 2: The afternoon’s drama peaked during the second final when Timmy Hansen, piloting for Marc Anthony’s Team Miami, suffered a high-impact collision with an erratic wave. The impact tore the nose clean off the RaceBird hull, instantly triggering a red flag and eliminating Team Miami from the contest.

Once racing resumed, Westbrook’s Lucas Ordóñez seized the moment. Finding pockets of clean water and extracting every kilowatt of energy from his Kreisel battery system, Ordóñez drove the Westbrook RaceBird to the checkered flag, securing both the race win and the overall Dubrovnik Grand Prix victory.

Reflecting on the triumph, Ordóñez noted: "This weekend has been incredibly special. We’ve triumphed in difficult conditions and proved our fight and resilience as a team. Will has backed us all the way, so it’s amazing to pay back that trust."

Supporting Context & Metrics: Decoding the E1 Ecosystem

The Machine: The All-Electric RaceBird

The engineering marvel underlying the E1 Series is the RaceBird. Designed by Sophie Horne of Seabird Technologies, the craft measures 7 meters (23 feet) in length and operates on advanced hydrofoil technology.

At speeds reaching 90 km/h (55 mph / 50 knots), the hydrodynamic wings lift the hull completely clear of the water’s surface. This dramatically reduces drag and wake generation, allowing the craft to slice through marine environments with minimal ecological disturbance. Power is supplied by a 150 kW (200 brake horsepower) electric outboard system engineered by Mercury Racing, driven by high-density Kreisel battery packs.

Championship Rules and Tactical Nuances

The E1 format is structured to reward endurance, adaptability, and tactical team cohesion over nine international race weekends:

• The Pilot Equality Rule: Every team fields one female and one male pilot. There are no segregated "men’s" or "women’s" races; points are aggregated from mixed disciplines, with pilots alternating race duties throughout the weekend.
• Lap Variations: Tracks feature a combination of Short, Normal, and Long laps (ranging from 900 meters to 1,700 meters). Saturday races consist of six laps, mandating precise navigation of at least one Long and one Short lap.
• The Boost Mechanic: Pilots can draw temporary bursts of excessive energy from their batteries for up to 20 seconds. However, tactical restraint is mandatory: the recharge lockout period is double the duration of the boost used (e.g., a 10-second boost requires a 20-second recovery wait), turning energy management into a high-stakes chess match.
• Clean Water Priority: Because RaceBirds rely on smooth hydrofoiling, encountering the wake of competitor boats or natural chop forces the hull back into the water. This incurs an immediate speed penalty and a massive energy drain to re-elevate the craft onto its foils.

Official Statements and Celebrity Stewardship

The convergence of elite sports figures, Hollywood royalty, and sustainable technology has turned the E1 Series into a cultural phenomenon.

Jamie Copas, Chief Executive Officer of E1, encapsulated the mood of the paddock following the Dubrovnik conclusion:

"This has been an extraordinary weekend of racing in one of the world’s great coastal cities, and today’s final delivered everything E1 stands for—fierce competition, gifted pilots, and the most spectacular setting in motorsport. The 2026 Championship is shaping up to be one of the most compelling seasons we have seen. We head to Monaco next month with the standings far from settled and every point between now and the finale will matter."

While the team owners remain on dry land, their competitive fire burns unabated through digital channels. Will Smith reportedly flooded the team owners’ private WhatsApp group with a jubilant, "YES! Finally ahead of you, Brady," prompting the legendary NFL quarterback—and owner of the two-time defending champions—to fire back with the timeless sporting classic: "We’ll see you at the next one."

Beyond entertainment value, the team owners serve a greater ideological mandate. Alongside Will Smith, Tom Brady, and LeBron James, figures such as Rafael Nadal, Steve Aoki, Virat Kohli, Didier Drogba, Marc Anthony, and Thibaut Courtois utilize their immense global platforms to champion marine conservation.

Concurrently with Friday’s qualifying sessions, Dubrovnik and Croatian officials convened a high-level Blue Economy Summit. Bringing together financial institutions, industry leaders, and public authorities, the summit utilized the E1 Series as a living proof-of-concept for how coastal municipalities can accelerate their transition toward climate-resilient, zero-emission marine infrastructure.

Future Outlook: The Road to the Bahamas

As the championship caravan packs up its hydrofoils and departs the Dalmatian Coast, the 2026 E1 World Championship standings reflect a fiercely contested leaderboard:

With the season not yet at its halfway mark, and a maximum haul of 38 points available for a single weekend victory, the championship remains wide open.

Next up on the 2026 calendar is the prestigious jewel of the Mediterranean: Monaco, scheduled for July 17–18. From there, the series will journey to Luanda, Angola (September 12–13), Lagos, Nigeria (October 3–4), and Miami, USA (November 13–14), before culminating in the ultimate showdown to crown the "Champions of the Water" in the Bahamas on November 21–22.

For Will Smith and Westbrook Racing, the flag has been planted at the summit, but with Tom Brady, LeBron James, and a hungry mid-field closing fast, the battle for marine supremacy has only just begun.