Double MotoE champion Jordi Torres joins María Herrera in a season with eight rounds, sixteen races and a new electric bike

MotoE makes its debut as a World Championship category in 2023 and expands its calendar to sixteen races throughout Europe. There will be eight Saturdays of competition for the eighteen riders that make up the grid and who share one goal: to be the first MotoE world champions. Brazilian Eric Granado arrives at the premiere of the competition in France as the fastest rider in the last pre-season tests, held in Barcelona in April. There, the MotoE riders were able to replicate a full weekend of competition, with Q1 and Q2 and a race simulation in which the winner was the Italian Nicholas Spinelli. Mattia Casadei, Matteo Ferrari and Andrea Mantovani completed the top 5 in Barcelona, a track where the riders will return in September for the penultimate round of the championship. Previously they will go through Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and Austria, before ending the season at the San Marino Grand Prix.

The Openbank Aspar Team starts its fifth season of MotoE, the first with the rank of World Championship, with the title as its objective and with a line-up made up of the two-time champion Jordi Torres and the veteran María Herrera. Torres faces his first race in MotoE this weekend after having replaced Izan Guevara in Portugal and Argentina in Moto2 at the beginning of the season. The Catalan rider will open a new era with the Valencian team after the one he starred in between 2011 and 2014 in the intermediate category. Torres begins this new challenge in what was his home, under the orders of Jorge Martínez "Aspar" and his former teammate Nico Terol, with the aim of adapting to the Ducati as quickly as possible and being able to fight for the podium constantly.

María Herrera faces her fifth season with the team and as one of only three riders to have competed in all MotoE races. The young Spanish rider starts this year from scratch, with a new motorcycle, the Ducati V21L, and with the aim of gaining confidence race by race to fight again for good results. Herrera completed more than 90 laps on the Ducati in Barcelona and arrives in France with valuable information to give everything from the start. The MotoE riders will have two free practice sessions on Friday before competing for pole position in the two qualifying practice sessions. On Saturday the two races of the French Grand Prix will be held at 12:10 and 16:10.

María Herrera: “The bike is very different from previous years; it has more electronics and you have to work a lot more with it. In Jerez we were unlucky with the weather, but we were able to test the bike in the wet, which will be positive for this season. In Barcelona it took us a little more but now we have a clean slate before the French Grand Prix. I'm looking forward to it, it's a circuit that I quite like. We are going to improve race by race and give one hundred percent from the first moment.”

Jordi Torres: “In the preseason we got to know part of the bike, but I think we didn’t get to 100%. We need to put the bike in a more critical situation to get out of it those four or five tenths more of pace. Le Mans will be a key point to take that step forward and find ourselves in the right place. During the year we will have to look for a more aggressive set-up that gets more out of the bike, but, with the time on track we have, we have to try to make it as fast as possible. We are going to France with great enthusiasm, with good feelings, and with the aim of continuing to accumulate kilometres and start to get points in a championship that is relatively short. We'll have to do the sun dance, hope it doesn't rain... although if it rains, I don't think anything will happen, because the bike and the tyres are good in wet conditions. I have good memories of Le Mans, despite the crash and injury last year, which are long forgotten. I've also won a championship there, and it's a good place to start the season. The team is also up to the task and we will be able to fight for the championship for sure, although it will be very competitive. The Ducati is an easy bike to ride, very intuitive and easy to get used to, and I think we'll all be fast from the start.”