MotoE: Torres Moves into the Driving Seat with Le Mans Race 1 Win

Jordi Torres secured the first MotoE win of his career in Le Mans.

The Spaniard held off a late charge from Mike di Meglio who had to settle for second. Niki Tuuli rounded out the podium in third.

With both his main title rivals crashing, Torres moved into the cup lead ahead of the final race of the season. He holds an 18 points advantage over Matteo Ferrari with Dominique Aegerter a further two points adrift.

Matteo Ferrari (Trentino Gresini MotoE) stole the holeshot from polesitter Jordi Torres (Pons Racing 40) and led into Dunlop Curve. Drama stroke immediately though when Mattia Casadei (Ongetta SIC58 Squadrocorse) highsided through the Dunlop Chicane, ending his race and any chance for the title he had left.

His bike was stranded on the circuit with the warning light flashing, meaning the track could not be cleared. The red flag came out and the race distance was reduced to a five lap shoot-out.

The lights went out for the restart and Ferrari once more got the jump. But yet again, the opening lap was marked by dramatic incidents at the Dunlop chicane. Xavier Simeon (LCR E-Team) crashed going into the first corner and in his wake was Dominique Aegerter (Dynavolt Intact GP) who in turn wiped out Niccolo Canepa (LCR E-Team). Aegerter was trapped under Canepa’s bike, but quickly got back onto his feet and rejoined the race down in 14^th.

Moments after the trio went down, Ferrari lost the rear firing out of the chicane and the cup leader was out of contention.

Torres inherited the lead and already held a healthy advantage over Niki Tuuli (Avant Ajo MotoE) in second and Mike di Meglio (EG 0,0 Marc VDS) in third. The gap was up to over a second on Lap 2 when di Meglio passed Tuuli and started a charge for the lead.

The Frenchman was running at a quicker pace than Torres and reeled in the Spaniard, dragging Tuuli to the front with him. By the final lap, a trio was running closely together at the front.

Torres was on a defensive mission and guarded the line through the final sector to keep di Meglio at bay. The Spanish Elvis took the chequered flag with just over a tenth of a second advantage and secured his first-ever MotoE win. Di Meglio celebrated a great podium finish on home soil while previous MotoE race winner Tuuli was finally back on the rostrum.

Josh Hook (Octo Pramac MotoE) had lost touch to the front trio but came home in a career-best fourth place. Tommaso Marcon (Tech3 E-Racing) rounded out the top 5 ahead of Eric Granado (Avintia Esponsorama Racing) and the Openbank Aspar Team machines of Maria Herrera and Alejandro Medina.

Alessandro Zaccone (Trentino Gresini MotoE) and Lukas Tulovic (Tech3 E-Racing) completed the top 10 while Xavi Cardelus (Avintia Esponsorama Racing) just missed out. Alex de Angelis (Octo Pramac MotoE) was 12^th from Jakub Kornfeil (WithU Motorsport) and Aegerter collected two potentially crucial championship points in 14^th.