Gutierrez & Zannoni celebrate first victories in MotoE in Catalunya

There were two first-time winners at the MotoE races in Catalunya last weekend. Rookie Oliver Gutierrez won on Saturday morning, while Kevin Zannoni also secured his first victory in the electric series afterwards. By contrast, the previous world championship leaders - Mattia Casadei and Nicholas Spinelli - were left behind.

World champion Mattia Casadei took the lead on the first corner. However, Kevin Zannoni made the biggest leap, coming from the third row on the outside track to second place. World championship runner-up Spinelli crashed early from 6th place and was thus eliminated. A four-way battle established itself at the front between Gutierrez, Granado Zannoni and Garzo, who frequently swapped positions due to the strong slipstream effect.

Casadei was unable to keep up and was relegated to 6th place. Gutierrez took the lead on the penultimate lap and immediately pulled away at the front, leaving only Granado to follow. But the Brazilian was unable to make any more manoeuvres and finished second. Zannoni defended third place against Garzo.

The result of the 5th MotoE race in Barcelona

Position	Rider	Team	Time
1	Oliver Gutierrez	Axxis-MSI	12:44.802 min
2	Eric Granado	LCR E-Team	+0.131 s
3	Kevin Zannoni	Openbank Aspar Team	+0.414 s
4	Hector Garzo	Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE	+0.792 s
5	Alessandro Zaccone	Tech3 E-Racing	+1.602 s
6	Mattia Casadei	LCR E-Team	+2.349 s

 

Race 2: Zannoni & Gutierrez benefit from crashes

In race 2 in the afternoon, Zannoni performed exactly the same trick again at the start and was successful once more - again, he took second place. Casadei was to take the lead again, but was overtaken just seconds later by Granado, who overtook the world champion and Zannoni in one move. Between laps 3 and 5, three top favourites crashed one after the other and thus dropped out: First it was Casadei in 2nd place, then Spinelli in 5th and finally Granado in the lead.

This meant that rookie Gutierrez once again took the lead ahead of Zannoni and Zaccone. On the start-finish straight before the last lap, the Italian challenged the Spaniard for the one-two victory and passed him from the slipstream. It was his first victory in his fourth season in MotoE. He also took the lead in the overall standings, one point ahead of Casadei and another ahead of Gutierrez.

The result of the 6th MotoE race in Barcelona

Position	Rider	Team	Time
1	Kevin Zannoni	Openbank Aspar Team	13:28.043 min
2	Oscar Gutierrez	Axxis-MSI	+0.139 s
3	Alessandro Zaccone	Tech3 E-Racing	+0.410 s
4	Jordi Torres	Openbank Aspar Team	+1.932 s
5	Hector Garzo	Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE	+4.345 s
6	Andrea Mantovani	KLINT Forward Factory Team	+4.928 s