Ahead of the first round of the MotoE World Cup 2020 on the Circuit of Jerez-Angel Nieto, Nicolas Goubert explained some of the updates that will characterize the 2020 edition.
“It’s been a long wait but we’re very happy to be here and start with a calendar that has the same number of events that we’d planned initially. A bit of a change with the dates but the same number of races; five events and seven races, which is really good! (here the complete calendar).
Regarding the novelties we have, of course the evolution of the bikes… Energica did a great job improving the torque on the bike, the torque on the engines, which is already quite high, even higher today; 10% more in the low rev range. We have a better cooling system, which we need especially with the temperature we have this week in Jerez.(here the full details of the cooling system).
On the suspension side we have worked with Öhlins (through Andreani Group which has a dedicated workshop in the paddock of the MotoE - editor's note) on the front fork setting because the guys were wanting, last year, a slower dive on the front end of the bike with the heavy braking, and when they did the testing in March with the new setup, they were happy. And, as well, we have something very important from Michelin; they’ve worked on the tyres, the front tyre has got a new compound to give more grip in the braking area, and a completely different rear, with a different profile, different construction - a tyre coming from MotoGP™. But the important thing from Michelin is that they brought sustainable technology with material that they can either recycle or are sustainable, so that’s a very big step for them and for us, it’s the first time they’re using that in race and the riders were very happy with the new tyres they test in March. There’s even another evolution since March in the rear because Michelin wasn’t completely happy with what they had done before."
And in terms of competitiveness?
“It was a positive point last year: we had very interesting races with many fights and, looking at the test results, we have eight new riders and some of them are the fastest ones! So surely they’ll be fighting with the others very quickly and that’s very good news."
There was also one update on Alesandro Zaccone (Trentino Gresini MotoE), who crashed unhurt on Wednesday in testing.
“Alessandro suffered a high-speed crash. Fortunately he's not injured, so he'll be riding tomorrow. That's a positive thing. because it was a high-speed crash we were a bit worried about the state of the bike so the Energica guys went to check it and the battery case had not suffered any damage, so we brought the bike back to the paddock and we put it in the safe area and nothing happened; no fire, nothing compared to what we had more than one year ago here!”
Here you can find the time schedule of the SpanishGP at Jerez on the next weekend.
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