Tom Brady, LeBron James and Will Smith Walk Into a Boat Race

On Friday and Saturday, November 13 and 14, ten carbon-fibre RaceBirds will lift out of the water off Watson Island and fly. There is no engine roar, no plume of exhaust, just the hiss of hydrofoils at speed and a skyline that has watched powerboats race here for more than seventy years. The Bombay Sapphire E1 Miami GP 2026 is the season finale of the UIM E1 World Championship, and for the first time in the sport's short history it is a double-header: two full race days, two sets of points, one crown.

The boats are identical. The owners are not. Tom Brady, LeBron James, Will Smith, Rafael Nadal, Marc Anthony and Steve Aoki all have a stake in what happens on the bay, and the paddock reads less like a pit lane than a private members' list.

A walk, a startup and a very fast bird

E1 was born from a conversation between two men who had already rewritten motorsport once. Alejandro Agag, the Spanish former politician who built Formula E and Extreme E from nothing, and Rodi Basso, a Naples-born engineer whose career ran through Ferrari, Red Bull, Magneti Marelli and McLaren Applied Technologies, decided that the water deserved the same electric reinvention as the road.

The missing piece was a boat. Agag had already backed SeaBird Technologies, an Oslo startup founded by Norwegian designer Sophi Horne to make electric leisure boating more accessible. Horne's brief for the race version was, by her own telling, simply to make something extraordinarily good-looking. The result was the RaceBird: a single-seat carbon hydrofoil built by Victory Marine, with a Mercury Racing powertrain and Kreisel batteries, that rises above the surface at speed.

The series was announced in September 2020. Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund came aboard as founding partner in 2021, and the RaceBird made its public debut on the water in Venice in June 2022. Racing proper began with the Jeddah GP in February 2024. Basso, who has since handed the chief executive role to Jamie Copas, framed the ambition plainly to the wealth press at launch: an experience that money cannot ordinarily buy.

Why Miami, and why now

Miami was always going to be the American address. Biscayne Bay has hosted international powerboat competition since the 1950s, and the city's relationship with fast hulls and bright water is woven into its image.

E1 made its US debut here as the 2025 season finale, racing from the Miami Seaplane Base, and Team Brady won on the day. Chairman Agag has been candid that the United States is the series' future, with ambitions for New York, Los Angeles and beyond, and Miami is the proof of concept.

This year the stakes rose. A revised 2026 calendar dropped planned stops in Nigeria and the Bahamas, compressing the season into seven rounds across four continents: Jeddah, Lake Como, Dubrovnik, Monaco, Luanda and then two in Miami. That makes this weekend the largest single haul of points E1 has ever put on one stretch of water.

The most exclusive owners' club in sport

The roster assembled the way the best guest lists do: one name at a time, each making the next easier to land. Didier Drogba's involvement helped bring in Rafael Nadal, which helped bring in Tom Brady, and so on. Brady has said the owners trade plenty of competitive needling in their group chat.

The early circle also included Formula 1 driver Sergio Pérez and Marcelo Claure, the Bolivian-American businessman and former Sprint chief executive, who stood on the Miami podium beside Smith, Nadal and Anthony last year. Two newer entries, Team Monaco and Sierra Racing Club, round out a ten-boat grid, the largest in E1 history.

Marc Anthony's team carries particular weight this weekend. Team Miami's management has credited the singer's local stature with giving the team an instant fan base the moment it launched.

Brady's three-peat, or Smith's coronation

Tom Brady arrives in Miami 40 points clear, chasing a third straight title. Will Smith's Westbrook Racing is the only team close enough to stop him.

Brady's pilots, Sam Coleman and Emma Kimiläinen, have reached the podium at every round this year but only converted that into a win in September, at the inaugural Luanda GP. That same weekend Westbrook's boat suffered technical problems and missed the final, which is how a nine-point gap became forty. With two full race days on the bay, forty points is a cushion, not a guarantee.

Gin, Britto and the view from the Ocean Club

If the racing is the reason, the hospitality is the point. Bombay Sapphire, a partner of E1 at stops from Lake Como to Ibiza, was named title partner of the Miami finale on November 6. Its Sparkling Lemon is the championship's official cocktail, poured at the venue and at participating bars across the city through race week. The brand also presents the E1 Blue Impact Championship, which rewards teams for marine conservation and restoration work.

The visual signature belongs to Romero Britto. The Recife-born, Miami-based pop artist, here since the late 1980s, has created three characters for the weekend: a manatee, a turtle and a dolphin, all protected species in Florida. His work dresses the E1 Ocean Club paddock, a RaceBird photo moment and a bespoke trophy for the top qualifier, and Ocean Club guests leave with pieces from a limited E1 x Britto capsule collection.

The Ocean Club itself is the room to be in: premium bayside viewing, all-day catering, an open bar, a tour of the E1 Launch Zone, racing simulators, pilot Q&As, a DJ and an evening session after Friday's podium. Early listings priced passes from around $900.

The weekend, in brief

E1 is a sport barely three seasons old, and it is already doing what Miami does best: making speed look effortless and making the guest list part of the spectacle. By Saturday afternoon, one of the most famous owners in sport will be lifting the Champions of the Water trophy over Biscayne Bay. The only question is whose name is on the boat.