Miami Makes Waves as E1 Powerboat Racing Brings High-Speed Action Back to the Waterfront This Weekend

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. – Miami is known for its calm blue waters, but this weekend, Biscayne Bay will be the battleground for speed, skill and a championship title.

With an atmosphere, skyline and waterfront like no other, Miami has drawn the UIM E1 World Championship back for a second time. On Friday Nov. 13 and Saturday Nov. 14, it’s the season finale and first-ever two day event. The stakes are high and the weekend is about more than the boats on the water. It’s about the people pushing the sport forward, the technology behind the competition, and the title that is still up for grabs.

E1 is the world’s first all-electric race boat championship, launched in 2024, and its hydrofoiling RaceBirds lift out of the water and fly. Ten teams have raced across four continents, and it all ends here, with Round 6 on Friday and Round 7 on Saturday. Tom Brady’s team arrives with 157 points, a 40-point lead over Will Smith’s Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola but qualifying results mean the gap is now cut to 37. With two full race days left, that is a cushion, not a guarantee.

Nobody knows that better than Emma Kimiläinen, a Finnish racing driver turned E1 boat racer. She is on Team Brady – meaning Tom Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion who now brings that competitive edge to life after football. Team Brady has won both world championships E1 has held since its founding in 2024, and now Kimiläinen and her team are chasing a third championship.

“We’re very used to having the targets on our backs,” she told CommunityWire in an interview.

Consistency has been the secret. Team Brady has made the podium at every race this season, even if, Kimiläinen admits, it hasn’t always felt smooth. Somehow, some way, the team pulled it off, she says, because every role supports each other. Owner Tom Brady pushes his drivers to think like a quarterback: Why do we win? Why do we lose? 

Aiming for anything else, she said, “would be a lie.”

After 34 years of car racing, Kimiläinen calls E1 the most cognitively demanding vehicle she has ever driven, a “spaceship-looking” machine fighting the laws of physics and the water itself. She is also a mother, and she wants her daughter to know “there are no limits.”

Chasing the championship is also Dani Clos of Aoki Racing Team owned by Steve Aoki, who calls Miami home. The former GP2 driver has lived here six years, and flying across waters he sees every day leaves him “very boosted.” Aoki won the season opener in Jeddah, and Clos sees a shot at the title or second place.

His single-seater background helped with the steering wheel, buttons and sensors, but that’s where the similarities end. Compared to a car, he says, a boat is “completely different.” Waves, currents and wind change every lap, so talking with his engineer and spotter is “fundamental.” His plan for the two races is simple: stay consistent, and “the results will come.”

Off the water, E1 CEO Jamie Copas is the face of the show. He joined in February, and he is already looking ahead. Next year, E1 plans more doubleheaders, more locations and two new teams. But the bigger mission, Copas said, is sustainability. The series is seeking more sustainable battery materials. At each stop, E1 shows how electric power can work on water, often in places without it, and Copas hopes to leave some behind. It will be a “slow burn,” he admits, but he believes it can change how boats move around the world.

So what should guests take home? One word: wow. Copas wants first-time viewers to look at these boats and say, “Wow, look at that.” He remembers overhearing a couple at a restaurant describe stumbling across an E1 race at Lake Como, Italy, watching “spaceships” race across the water, and becoming fans on the spot. If E1 can do that everywhere it goes, he said in a briefing with journalists this week. 

For Team Miami’s Timmy Hansen, the home crowd is part of the thrill. The team, co-owned by Marc Anthony, expects many guests to have “a lot of blue caps” in the stands. The Swedish driver traded four wheels for foils, and says he is “extremely competitive” and loves the engineering side of the boat.

His race plan starts with clean water, because clean water means speed. Then comes the long lap and short lap, a shortcut each driver can use. It has been a hard season, he said: “We’ve lost races, we’ve crashed.” But the finale offers “everything to play for.”

Ready to crash Team Brady’s title party is Sara Price. The  off-road champion drives for Westbrook Racing by Visit Angola, the team backed by Will Smith – and yes, we mean that Will Smith – which has won two rounds this season. Water, she said, is “forever changing.” Her mindset this weekend: “focus, keep it together, do the dumb things right.” Winning, she added, would be “unreal,” and “really cool” if it means throwing Brady off the top spot.

Price also appreciates the growing role of women in the sport, a priority E1 names alongside sustainability and innovation. Equal opportunity for women and men is “huge,” she said, because the issue was never a lack of talent. It was that “talented women aren’t getting the opportunity to grow and get to show that.” 

Two races. One city. A season’s worth of work coming down to one weekend. And on Biscayne Bay, the next champions of the water are about to be decided.

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