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FE CEO Dodds pokes fun at F1 with $250K bet on another Verstappen title
Formula E CEO Jeff Dodds has pledged to donate $250,000 to charity if a driver other than Max Verstappen wins this year’s Formula 1 world championship.
Speaking to former soccer player Jermaine Jenas, the lead presenter for Formula E’s television coverage, Dodds declared this year’s F1 championship already a foregone conclusion, compared to Formula E which has already had three different winners from its first three races this season.
“99 percent, he gets that trophy,” Dodds said of Verstappen. “I’ll tell you what, if he doesn’t win it … if any one of the other 19 drivers wins it, we’ll give a quarter of a million dollars to the charity of the choice of the other driver that wins it.
“It wouldn’t be the worst day in the office to give a load of money to charity, let’s be honest,” he added. “But absolutely, he is nailed on to win that season, which is why for me as a fan of Formula E and Formula 1, I know I’m going to turn up to Sao Paulo (for the next Formula E race)… neither of us have any idea who’s going to win that race. So I’m quite excited by that.”
Despite feeling that the 2024 F1 season would be another walkover for Verstappen, Dodds insisted it wouldn’t put him off watching.
“I know as a Formula 1 fan, the season’s about to start and yes, I’ll watch it and the fanfare and everything goes with it -- but I absolutely already know who’s winning,” he said. “You can’t … go in the off-season, (do a) bit of development on the cars, come back for the next one and not win it. I just can’t see it.”
Last season Formula E had seven winners from six teams across its 16 races, with four repeat victors. Mitch Evans and Nick Cassidy won four races apiece, while Pascal Wehrlein took three wins and champion Jake Dennis two. The 2020-21 campaign, meanwhile, featured a record 11 different race winners across that season's 15 races, matching F1’s record from the 16-race 1982 season.
Verstappen and his Red Bull team steamrolled the competition in F1 last year, with the Dutchman winning 19 of 22 races, with teammate Sergio Perez adding two more to the team’s haul and Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz being the only driver to prevent a clean sweep at the Singapore Grand Prix.
Dominik Wilde
Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?
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