Leadbetter Highlights Extreme H's Drive to Promote Young Talent

London, UK, 27 November 2025: While Extreme E and Extreme H have attracted some of the biggest names in motorsport, it’s also provided excellent opportunities for rising stars to prove themselves on the biggest stage.

Someone who perfectly demonstrates that is Gray Leadbetter. A rising star in the world of American off-road racing, Leadbetter joined the ‘Extreme’ fraternity in Season 4, racing for Legacy Motor Club, and returned once again for the FIA Extreme H World Cup, racing for ZEROID Motorsport alongside Fraser McConnell.

But aside from being a young driver making her way in the tough world of motorsport – and the youngest driver of all at the FIA Extreme H World Cup – she’s also a great example of how Extreme H’s gender equal ethos has pushed female talent to the forefront and given them opportunities to race on a level playing field with the best male drivers on the planet.

“It's a great opportunity,” Gray said. “It's not something that you would get anywhere else. Anywhere else, you have to work your way up through the ranks, and then by the time you get there, the people that you looked up to might already be out of the sport or they're so far ahead of you because they have years of experience on you. With Extreme E, it had only been around for so long that whenever you got into the series, everyone was on the same playing field and you got to race competitively on the track.

“I've always said, and I think it's true, racing cars is the one sport where it doesn't matter if you're a male or female, because when it comes to cars, it's not about endurance, it's not about running, it's not about who can lift the most, and I think that's what makes it super cool, is that a woman can be just as competitive as a man. It's just getting your confidence up, is really what I always think it is that makes our differences.

“Extreme E, it really proved that. It was like a five second gap between males and females in the first season of Extreme E, and then going into Extreme H, we were within just one second of the guys.

“It proves that we have the speed, we have the power, we have the capability to do it. It's just showing our worth and having the opportunities.”

As well as providing those opportunities for female drivers, Leadbetter points out that by putting them in the same cars and races as their male counterparts, it means that both get looked at equally in all aspects, not just in terms of lap times.

“In the world of females in motorsport, you either get hated on or you get so much praise, and then if you don't perform, you get hated on [later],” she conceded. “You either get one or the other, and that's what sucks about it.

“If you make one mistake, it ultimately looks bad on all females. When a guy makes one mistake, it's like, ‘oh, they just had a bad weekend’.

“But I think in Extreme H, because there's an equal number of both, if we have a bad weekend, or the male driver on the team is also struggling, it's not just her issue, and it's something with the car. You have to have somebody else to back you up.”

Unlike the rest of the Extreme H field, Leadbetter didn’t have the advantage of track time in Extreme E’s ‘Final Lap’ the weekend beforehand. That left her at something of a disadvantage, but it’s one she quickly overcame, with the help of her teammate McConnell, whom she first competed alongside in the 2019 Americas Rallycross ARX2 season.

“Yeah, I definitely had a big disadvantage,” she admitted. “I think I had had roughly about five or six days less of driving on the same track as everyone else – they changed two turns, but it was basically the same thing.

“Fraser was a big help. We went over so much footage and data to be able to learn from him. But either way, I was at a disadvantage. But I just had the mindset that besides like two or three, maybe four drivers that had driven the H car before, this was a brand new vehicle to everyone, and it was going to drive differently to the E car, so I just took my off road experience that I knew, and I was just like ‘I just need to push as fast as I can, as hard as I can, as quick as I can’.

“In the first two runs that I did, I was definitely off pace. I was just trying to learn the track and be patient and not break the car, not have any issues. Obviously, by the end of the weekend, I think I showed that I was up to pace.

“It was a blast to have Fraser. We got along super well. But it was just cool to get to race with him after we raced in ARX together six years ago, and actually get to work together. He knows his stuff in and out, and I was able to learn a lot from him.”

Leadbetter says that as well as being a place that can benefit drivers in motorsport, Extreme H also has a wider benefit for its participants.

“It's such an interesting sport, a type of motorsport that you don't see anywhere else,” she said. “It teaches you that you have to be patient, that you have to be on your game as soon as you go on the track. It teaches you how to work with somebody close, how to give a car to somebody, and know that you can't mess it up, and that if you do, it affects somebody else.

“There's a lot that Extreme H gives you, and I think that definitely carries on to different types of motorsport and even life – you're going out and racing, you've got two laps, you have to be on your game and you can't mess up, or else you're going to give somebody else a bad draw, and vice versa.”

Commenting on Leadbetter’s performance at the FIA Extreme H World Cup, James Taylor, Chief Championship Officer, said: “Gray has huge talent, which she showed with a great performance in Qiddiya City this year. She’s a pleasure to work with and we look forward to her racing in Extreme H for many years to come. Gray will certainly be on the top step of the podium very soon.

“We are 100% committed to our female and young driver development programmes to provide as many opportunities as possible for the next generation of athletes to maximise their potential.”