E1 Lagos GP presented by FirstBank - Race Report
Timmy Hansen was in fantastic form as he helped Team Brazil by Claire Group take their maiden victory after winning the penultimate round of the 2025 UIM E1 World Championship presented by PIF season in Lagos.
Team Brazil secures their first UIM E1 victory
Coming into the weekend all eyes were on the battle for the championship with leaders Team Brady and Team Rafa separated by just a single point. Both teams expected to be fighting for victory as the UIM E1 World Championship headed to Lagos for the first time, but Team Brazil upset the party with a fantastic victory.
Team Brazil had a great start to Sunday’s Group Races, winning the opening race by a clear margin, and that put them straight into the Final.
In Final 1, all eyes were on Emma Kimilainen, who stormed to a dominant victory, but Team Brazil were never far behind. Ieva Millere Hagin was making her UIM E1 World Championship debut for technology entrepreneur Marcelo Claure’s Team Brazil in Lagos and she did enough to cross the line in third.
But in Final 2, Hansen timed his start perfectly to propel Team Brazil straight into the lead at the start, and from there he never looked back, crossing the line over six seconds ahead of Blue Rising to take Team Brazil’s first-ever UIM E1 World Championship victory.
“This feels so special,” said Hansen immediately after the race. “We’ve had to come a long way for this win. We’ve had to fight super-hard, dig really deep. Losing is the hardest thing. Today we are winners, but we have come through everything and I can’t believe we are on the top step of the podium.”
“The final was super tough. I had the perfect start but the last two laps, I had something stuck on my foil. So the boat just wouldn’t go. I could barely get over 70 (knots). So it was super-slow my boat at the end and I was very worried it wouldn’t be enough when I did my long lap. But it was and we are winners!”
Team Blue Rising ended up finishing second, while football legend Didier Drogba was on site to witness his team end up on the podium with third.
The fight for the championship
Having won the Qualifying Races, Team Rafa took the championship lead on Saturday in Lagos, going into Sunday with a single point advantage over Team Brady. But on Sunday, things quickly turned around.
Team Rafa didn’t have the pace, and although tennis ace Rafael Nadal’s team managed to make it to the final, they ended up finishing a distant fifth.
Things weren’t much better for Team Brady though. Kimilainen took a dominant victory in Final 1, giving American Football legend Tom Brady hope that his team could clinch another win in Final 2, but although Sam Coleman was running second in the early stages, his race quickly went awry.
Coleman made contact with Team Drogba midway through the race, losing him valuable time and momentum, and after completing his Long Lap, Coleman found himself down in fourth place where he remained for the rest of the race.
That means that going into the final round of the UIM E1 World Championship Team Brady leads the championship with 154 points, three points more than Team Rafa, while Rising Blue sits third on 145.
