2022 Le Mans MotoE Race 1 Result: Impeccable From Start To Finish

The first taste of racing action at Le Mans came courtesy of the MotoE cup, where Mattia Casadei put in a dominating display to claim a maiden victory in the class. The poleman was briefly challenged by a fast-starting Kevin Zannoni but Casadei quickly retaliated and started to build a gap at the front. That was aided by an early incident at turn three, where reigning cup champion Jordi Torres lost control and fell in the path of incoming bikes. Despite the scary incident that required a trip to the medical centre, the first reports were that the Spaniard avoided serious injury. The order in the pack shuffled quite a bit in the incident, allowing Casadei, Zannoni and Hikari Okubo to distance themselves by one second from the pursuit led by Dominique Aegerter. Matteo Ferrari was also part of that group, together with Hector Garzo, Miquel Pons and Alex Escrig, who had made fast progress from outside the top 10 on the grid, while Eric Granado lost ground early on and, unlike Jerez, never looked on course for a comeback.

Back at the front, Casadei managed to extend a seven tenths’ advantage over Zannoni, who in turn was dropping Okubo into Aegerter’s clutches, but Zannoni promptly picked up the pace and managed to bridge the gap to the leader by the halfway point of proceedings. Overtaking was another story and the first attempt came at the start of the final lap, but it proved unsuccessful and a final attempt at turn 13 ended with Zannoni joining the gravel trap. Casadei took the chequered flag with a sizeable advantage from Aegerter, who had attacked Okubo into turn three with two laps remaining, but the Japanese rider was happy enough to inherit a final podium position – his best result of the season.

Matteo Ferrari had a quiet ride to fourth, with the next group over four seconds down the road and with Garzo the winning party in the battle for fifth. Granado spent the final few laps of the race battling his teammate, with quite a bit of contact, but ultimately had to admit defeat to Pons. Niccolo Canepa, Andrea Mantovani and Alex Escrig rounded out the top 10 positions, the Spaniard dropping out of the battle for fifth after serving a long lap penalty for a shortcut at turn 10.

Despite the underwhelming result, Granado continues to lead the world cup standings, but Aegerter closes the gap to only six points, while Casadei makes up a handful of positions to trail the leader by 18 points.

Results: