The Spanish rider closed the weekend in Barcelona with a crash and a seventh place which dropped him to second place in the general standings. For Torres there are only two races left to turn the situation around at Misano.
The Catalan GP of MotoE in Barcelona it was an unexpected setback for Jordi Torres. Due to a crash and a seventh place finish, the Openbank Aspar Team rider dropped to second place in the overall standings after leading the championship since the first race at Le Mans.
In Barcelona nobody was able to stop Mattia Casadei in the two races of the MotoE World Championship. The Italian rider took one win and a second place and took his fourth win in the last five races. These results now allow him to lead the standings, with a 21-point lead over Jordi Torres and 22 over Matteo Ferrari, with just one grand prix to go. In the first race, the Openbank Aspar Team rider got off to a great start, with an advantage of more than half a second over his pursuers. However, with three laps to go, Mattia Casadei passed him to take the lead. Torres attempted to attack him with two laps to go, but the Spaniard went off the racing line and dropped to seventh, where he finished the race. The battle for victory continued and, in the end, it was Andrea Mantovani who crossed the finish line in first position, with Casadei second and Héctor Garzò third.
The second race saw once again a battle between Torres and Casadei for the win, a fight which ended with the Openbank Aspar Team rider crashing when leading the race, and the Italian taking victory. Mantovani finished second and Spinelli third. Matteo Ferrari, the other title contender, closed the weekend with a fourth and a fifth place which keep him in the fight for the championship in the last Grand Prix, at Misano, this weekend.
The result in the two home races came as a real shock to Torres. The two-time champion of the MotoE arrived in Barcelona to play for his first match point of the year, having a 15-point lead over Casadei and 16 over Ferrari. After Friday's pole position, everyone expected Torres to be the protagonist of Saturday's two races. So it was but not as the Spaniard would have expected. The mistake in resisting Casadei's overtake in turn 1 and the crash while he was leading the race in turn 5, were two serious blows to Torres' aspirations to win the MotoE 2023 Championship Title. Now the Spaniard has to recover 21 points in two races, on a circuit where he has always enjoyed himself but which is also the home track of both Mattia Casadei and Matteo Ferrari, winner of six of the nine races in MotoE at Misano.
MotoE World Championship
The standings of the 2023 championship
Jordi Torres (Openbank Aspar Team)
“It has been a difficult day. We have started both races from pole position and with good feelings. In the first race I was fighting for the win, but I have had a small contact with Casadei that has almost made me go to the ground. The move was risky and maybe I have been too fair. In the end we have finished seventh and we have had to reset ourselves for the second race. In the afternoon we have tried to be more aggressive. I have fought to stay in the lead and when I have tried to push a bit harder in the last corner I have crashed. We have closed the weekend with the feeling that we are competitive. We have got pole position and have led most of the laps, so we have the potential to be at the front and fight for the Championship. We have tried our best and we will do it again.
We have shown that we can fight for the championship. When you try, sometimes you fail. For Misano we take off the pressure of being leaders and we must come back, with the same attitude as until now, but trying to fight until the end. We know that our rivals were practically born in the 'Quercia' (one of the corners of the Misano circuit), but in the past we have already had great races there and we can do it again. We don't consider everything is lost: it's clear that we are far away, 21 points away, but anything can happen in this category."
MotoE World Championship
The gallery of the Barcelona GP of MotoE
Photos: MotoGP and IntactGP
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