Eric Granado secured the pole position in the MotoE World Championship at Portimão this afternoon. The electric motorcycle championship makes its debut at the Portuguese circuit this year to kick off the new season.
Qualifying began with Q1 to determine the final two qualifiers for the pole position battle. The strongest turned out to be Miquel Pons (Axxis-MSI), who outpaced Lukas Tulovic (Dynavolt Intact GP) by 0.193s. Matteo Ferrari (Felo Gresini), the 2019 champion, missed out on Q2 access by finishing third, 0.214s behind Tulovic. Consequently, he will start from 11th on the grid in the races at Portimão. Further down was rookie Chaz Davies (Aruba Cloud MotoE), eighth in Q1 and 16th on the grid.
In Q2, ten riders took to the track to battle for pole position. Mattia Casadei (LCR E-Team) was the initial leader but was later overtaken by Nicolas Spinelli (Tech3 E-Racing)… who held the top spot for only a brief moment before Granado set the best qualifying time.
The Brazilian from LCR E-Team clocked a time of 1m46.470s to claim the top spot, beating Spinelli by 0.067s. Casadei will start from third, having been 0.116s slower than Granado. Héctor Garzó (Dynavolt Intact GP) finished fourth, sharing the second row of the grid with Alessandro Zaccone (Tech3 E-Racing) and Óscar Gutiérrez (Axxis-MSI). The two-time champion Jordi Torres (Openbank Aspar) will start from seventh in both races.