Portugal MotoE, Portimao RACES | Spinelli, Casadei share the spoils as 2024 MotoE sparks up, Davies scores

Nicholas Spinelli kicked off his 2024 MotoE World Championship campaign exactly how he concluded his 2023 season by claiming victory in the opening round of the season at Portimao as Mattia Casadei followed suit with success in Race 2 for LCR.

Some six months on from signing off from his rookie campaign with the since departed Pons Racing team at Misano, Spinelli – now with Tech3 E-Racing – got his sophomore season off to a similarly feisty start after winning out in a three-way fight to the line with Hector Garzo and Mattia Casadei.

The Italian initially trailed early frontrunner Eric Granado after the Brazilian got the hole-shot from pole position, only to tip out of the lead coming around the Turn 11 right-hander.

That handed the lead fight over to Spinelli, Garzo, Casadei and Alessandro Zaccone, a position that would change hands over the course of the seven-lap encounter.

While Garzo headed up a whittled leading trio coming into the final lap, Spinelli’s lunge on the IntactGP rider into Turn 1 would prove crucial as the ex-WorldSSP rider got his Ducati slowed on the anchors to resist his rival on the exit.

Though Garzo and similarly close-following defending champion – on his debut with LCR E-Team – remained on his tail to the flag, Spinelli would complete his second career MotoE win and a first for Tech3 E-Racing since Lukas Tulovic’s 2021 Austrian MotoE success.

Fittingly enough, this race would mark Tulovic’s return to the series following a stint in MotoE, the IntactGP rider bringing his Ducati home in fourth place from Kevin Zannoni (Team Aspar) and Massimo Roccoli (SIC58 Squadra Corse).

In a fairly incident-filled race that would see title favourites Jordi Torres fail to finish and Matteo Ferrari outside the top ten in 11th, it would pave the way for Chaz Davies to secure a fine ninth place finish on his MotoE debut.

His first (non Endurance World Championship) race outing since the end of the 2021 WorldSBK season, Davies used his experience to dodge the drama on the Aruba Cloud Racing Team bike to finish just 16secs shy of the overall win.

🇵🇹 🏁 2024 Portugal MotoE, Portimao | RACE 1 Results

Saturday | Conditions – Overcast, Dry

2024 Portuguese MotoE – RACE 2

Mattia Casadei ensured a race-winning start to his 2024 MotoE World Championship title defence after resisting the close attentions of Hector Garzo and Oscar Gutierrez in Race 2 of the season’s opening round in Portimao.

Having been made to settle for third in the day’s earlier Race 1 encounter, on this occasion Casadei would have the measure of a closely-matched pack to secure a victory on his first weekend with LCR E-Team.

Much like in Race 1, Casadei settled into an initial three-way tussle for the lead with Nicholas Spinelli and Hector Garzo, but the trio was soon reduced to a duo when the former scuppered his hopes of a dream double by bowling out of the lead at Turn 11.

Handing the initiative to Garzo, it wouldn’t remain in his possession for long before Casadei breezed past on the start-finish line, a set-piece they’d repeat again in the ensuing laps as the flag on lap seven neared.

Coming into the final revolution, however, both were caught unawares on the run to Turn 1 by an eager Gutierrez, the Spaniard – at the start of his first full season of MotoE – nosing ahead on the Axxis-MSi machine, only to be shuffled back to third by Casadei and Garzo on the exit.

It was an order they’d maintain to the flag, Casadei opening his victory account nice and early having waited until the second-half of the 2023 MotoE season to mount a charge for the title.

The Italian would lead home a podium of Garzo and – for the first time – Gutierrez by less than +0.2s, chased closely still within a second of the win by Eric Granado in fourth and Jordi Torres in fifth.

In a race of lower attrition than Race 1, Chaz Davies wouldn’t break into the top ten in Race 2, but still score a point for his efforts in 15th place.

🇵🇹 🏁 2024 Portugal MotoE, Portimao | RACE 2 Results

Saturday | Conditions –, Dry