Winter has passed and the 2024 season of MotoE is ready to kick off this weekend with the Portuguese GP in Portimao. Casadei, Torres, Ferrari and Granado, together with the other MotoE World Championship riders, are preparing to write a new chapter in the electric MotoGP class.
This weekend, on the new, for the MotoE, Portimao circuit, the Portuguese GP will be held, the first round of the 2024 season of the electric MotoGP category, the sixth since its debut and the second with the status of World Championship.
This is also the second edition with the Ducati V21L, the electric prototype of the Borgo Panigale manufacturer, which will be the sole supplier for the MotoE until 2026. This year, the calendar is confirmed at eight rounds and sixteen races, from March to September, with the novelty of the Portimao circuit. In 2024, three new teams and five new riders will debut in MotoE while the list of possible favourites for the final victory grows. At the top of the list is the reigning champion, Mattia Casadei. This year, the Italian changes team and begins a new challenge in the LCR team alongside Eric Granado. The first of his rivals is the standard bearer of the Openbank Aspar Team, Jordi Torres, winner of the MotoE in 2020 and 2021, and runner-up in the last edition. Torres enters 2024 with the aim of taking back the crown of the MotoE after leading the 2023 championship until two stages before the end. Héctor Garzó, the fastest in the pre-season test, Matteo Ferrari, Eric Granado and Nicholas Spinelli are also aiming for the title in a season that looks like the most competitive ever, with nine of the top ten finishers in 2023 at the start.
Before the season begins on Saturday with the first two races, the riders of the electric category of the World Championship will face one last day of test, also in Portimao, on Thursday.
The teams and riders of the MotoE World Championship 2024
2024 is the second in which the MotoE World Championship is held with Ducati electric V21L. If, as far as the bike is concerned, there is no big news awaiting the new model for the 2025-2026 two-year period, on the rider front, there are several important changes. The first of all concerns the reigning world champion, Mattia Casadei, who announced the agreement with Lucio Cecchinello's LCR team. Casadei won the title with the PONS Racing team in 2023, the last year in the world championship for the Spanish team, which in addition to the MotoE, also left the Moto2 class. PONS Racing has been replaced by another Spanish team: MT Helmets – MSi, which will, therefore, participate in Moto2024, Moto3 and MotoE.
MT Helmets – MSi, for the MotoE class, takes the name of Axxis-MSI, lining up Miquel Pons and Oscar Gutierrez. Miquel Pons is a Spanish rider with already three years of experience in MotoE and winner of the Catalan GP in 2021, while Oscar Gutierrez is almost a rookie in MotoE, having raced last year with the Ducati V21L on a couple of occasions, to replace the injured Luca Salvadori.
Returning to the LCR team, Cecchinello's team line-up will be the Casadei-Granado duo: the reigning world champion and the rider who has won the most races in MotoE.
Gresini Racing has also confirmed both Matteo Ferrari and Alessio Finello for 2024, while the Aspar team has renewed its trust in Jordi Torres and has chosen as his teammate Kevin Zannoni, fresh from two podiums in the MotoE 2023 with the Sic58 Squadra Corse. For 2024, Nicholas Spinelli, the young Italian rider who won the last race of last season, has reached an agreement with the Tech3 E-Racing team. In Hervé Poncharal's team, Spinelli teams up with Alessandro Zaccone, in his second consecutive season with the French team.
In addition to the Axxis-MSI team, there are two other rookie teams in the MotoE 2024: Klint Forward Racing and Aruba Cloud MotoE. Klint Forward Racing took over the two Ducati V21L ex-RNF, thus doubling its presence in the world championship and lining up four riders in Moto2 and MotoE. Together with Maria Herrera, Andrea Mantovani, who won two races last season, is on the Forward team. In addition to the bikes and Mantovani, Forward Racing took the technical director, Ramon Forcada, winner of four MotoGP titles, as Jorge Lorenzo's crew chief from the RNF team. Instead, the Aruba Cloud team selected two rookies with electric motorbikes to ride the Ducati MotoE on track: Chaz Davies and Armando Pontone.
Among the nine teams taking part in the MotoGP electric class we also find Dynavolt Intact GP and the Sic58 Squadra Corse. The first confirmed Hector Garzò, winner of his first MotoE race last year and fourth at the end of the championship, and announced Lukas Tulovic, returning to MotoE, where he had already raced in the 2020 and 2021 seasons. The Sic58 team has confirmed Kevin Manfredi for 2024, in his third season in MotoE and fresh from two-second places in 2023, and has chosen Massimo Roccoli as the team's second rider.
These are the teams and riders of the MotoE World Championship 2024:
LCR E-Team: Mattia Casadei – Eric Granado
Felo Gresini MotoE rider: Matteo Ferrari – Alessio Finello
Openbank Aspar team: Jordi Torres – Kevin Zannoni
Tech3 E-Racing: Alessandro Zaccone – Nicholas Spinelli
Dynavolt Intact GP: Lukas Tulovic – Hector Garzò
Ongetta Sic58 Squadra Corse: Kevin Manfredi – Massimo Roccoli
Axxis – MSi: Miquel Pons – Oscar Gutierrez
Klint Forward Racing: Andrea Mantovani – Maria Herrera
Aruba Cloud MotoE: Chaz Davies – Armando Pontone
The weekend schedule of MotoE 2024
The weekend schedule is not changing in 2024. The MotoE always kicks off on Friday at 8:30 am with FP1, before a second session, FP2 at 12:25 pm. The combined times of FP1 and FP2 set the riders' entrants to Q1 and Q2, starting at 16:15 pm.
Saturday is show time for the MotoE World Championship: it's the day of the double race.
Race 1 starts at 12:15 pm, immediately after the qualifying session of MotoGP, and is the first race of the weekend. This is followed by the qualifying session of Moto3 and Moto2 and the MotoGP Sprint race.
Race 2 follows the MotoGP Sprint Race, with the lights going out for the second race of the weekend set for 16:10. It is a double event that gives the electric world incredible visibility and ensures fans from all over the world the best of this parallel path of sustainable innovation.
The technical innovations of the 2024 season
For the second year, the riders of MotoE will be riding the electric motorbike of Ducati, the V21L. For those who don't know it, the characteristics of the Ducati electric bike are: 150 HP of power, 140 Nm of torque, and 282 km/h of maximum speed. The bike weighs 225 kg, of which 110 kg is from the 18 kWh, 800 V liquid-cooled battery. The latter is contained in a carbon casing, making it the motorbike's frame. On the Ducati MotoE, the rear brake is no longer mechanical, but 'electric'; the braking action is achieved through the electronic engine management.
The electronic controls, which include Ride by Wire, Traction Control, Slide Control, Wheelie Control and engine braking management, make riding the V21L substantially similar to riding any other Ducati racing bike.
Among the electronics innovations, we highlight the increase in the number of maps for the engine brake, which goes from three to nine, while the number of maps for Traction Control and Ride by Wire remains unchanged. Among the main electronics upgrades, we highlight the adaptive Traction Control function, which now has rear tyre wear among its parameters.
One of MotoE 2024's main innovations lies precisely in Michelin tires. The quantity of recycled and eco-sustainable materials rises further, reaching 49% at the front and 53% at the rear. The latter is characterized by a particular tread design that symbolizes Michelin's "all-sustainable" strategy and evokes the Vision Tire presented by the French company in 2017.
Last but not least, we would like to point out the Anti-Wheelie "celebration mode": at the end of the race, after having crossed the finish line, the riders of the MotoE will be able to disengage the Wheelie Control to celebrate by doing a wheelie on the return lap.
MotoE World Championship 2024
The schedule of the 2024 MotoE Portuguese GP
MotoE World Championship 2024
The calendar of MotoE 2024: 16 races and the new-entry of Portimao
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