MotoE: how electric motorcycle racing could be the biggest threat to the MotoGP status quo
At 8.30am on the Saturday morning during the Austrian Grand Prix, the media centre is coming to life as more journalists and photographers file in. “You’d never know that MotoE is on, would you?” comments a colleague. Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows, fast-moving reflections and colours zip down the main straight of the Spielberg circuit. Somebody has hit “mute” on MotoGP.
It’s the free practice session for the brand-new electric support class to theotoGP main event – afforded the distinction of an FIM World Cup (normally a precursor to full world championship status) – and the first of three years as part of the fabric of MotoGP. In a sport that involves a control tyre supplier, standard electronics ECU, tightening rules on aerodynamics and frequent bitter rivalry between the major riders, nothing has polarised opinion quite like MotoE in 2019.
In a strange reverse for these climate change-conscious times, the principal criticisms have been quite rudimentary and have focussed on aspects such as the lack of noise and the short race distances due to battery life. There have also been additional safety concerns. Race marshals have been trained to deal with red and green lights denoting the status of live hazardous crashed motorcycles and have been armed with insulated recovery equipment.
Infamously, the MotoE story began in a fiery haze of heat: a short-circuit ignited one of the lithium batteries and all 18 stock-spec motorcycles and the material of the E-paddock were incinerated at the (thankfully relatively empty) Jerez circuit ahead of a test in March.
Rebuilt, rescheduled and re-checked, MotoE finally began at the Sachsenring for the German round in July. There the grid of 18 Italian-made Energica Ego Corsa bikes, fielded by many of the current MotoGP teams as a side project, capable of a 170mph top speed and 0-60mph in less than three seconds (but with a back-busting 260kg weight) broke new ground.
MotoE has faced scepticism and adversity but has responded with arguably the biggest trump card: tight action. From the four rounds contested in Germany, Austria and Italy (and ahead of the last double-header at Valencia next month) the race-winning margins are the length of a small extension lead: reaching an accumulative total of only 5.5 seconds with three different victors - all within only 24 laps. It rivals MotoGP for unpredictability and proximity of the participants.
The chase to be the first MotoE World Cup Champion is still on and former MotoGP racer and current factory Aprilia test rider Bradley Smith is in third place.
“The best thing we can have is a competitive championship that is close and a spectacle for television; that is the main target for all of this,” the 28-year-old former Yamaha and KTM rider says. “We are developing a new technology in motorcycle racing and to see how far we can take it. Energica have done a great bike so let’s see where the direction of motorsport takes us.”
Smith mixes his day job of riding Aprilia’s MotoGP motorcycle (which weighs almost 100kg less and is capable of at least 60mph more) with his MotoE dalliance. He concedes that that the discipline itself with the gearless, ride-by-wire tech requires an exact skill that can be as demanding as the combustion-engined cousins.
“You have to be precise with these bikes because everyone has the same, and you don’t have an abundance of power,” Smith says. “It is like going with your friends to the go-kart track and everyone is playing with 0.1-0.2 of a second. You try to make 13 corners perfectly and even if you do that then you are [only] fractions ahead. We only had five laps at the first race but it was intense. There is no room for any mistakes. MotoGP brings a massive amount of power and speed and this is more [about] precision and close racing.”
MotoE, for now, is gunning squarely at entertainment. Some believe that MotoGP promoter Dorna has missed a trick with the identical-spec Energica machinery and by foregoing the rapid rate of innovation happening in the e-mobility market.
Regulation emphasises the desire for parity, and for the near future the formula has to be honed. More track time is the first objective.
MotoE executive director Nicholas Goubert says: “After Germany many realised that it is like a normal race and that was the best I could have dreamt of because it shows you can have fun watching electric bikes.
“Hopefully next year we will have a battery charger on the grid. So after the sighting lap we’ll be able to top up the battery to gain one lap. It will get better quickly. We won’t have a 20-lap race yet but it will grow.”
The symbolic and political undertones of MotoE are inescapable. Recognition that it could well be the forerunner of a future form of MotoGP means there is interest in the potential implications of its development as much as for the current novelty; watching a rider failing to lift a fallen e-bike in the Red Bull Ring gravel is unusual reminder that the motorcycles are not quite the norm.
Honda, Ducati, Yamaha, Suzuki, KTM and Aprilia MotoGP bikes might pound the eardrums at a maximum of 130 decibels (only slightly quieter than a jet plane on take-off) but the biggest “noise” in Grand Prix motorcycle racing could in reality be almost nothing at all.
For tips and advice, visit our Advice section, or sign up to our newsletter here
To talk all things motoring with the Telegraph Cars team join the Telegraph Motoring Club Facebook group here