Tech3 E-Racing’s Hikari Okubo and Alessandro Zaccone disputed another two electric races on Saturday at the Sachsenring after the both completed their best qualifying day of the season yesterday, with Hikari taking P5 in qualifying coming all the way from Q1, and teammate Alessandro taking P8 on the grid.

Race 1
An intense rainfall having occurred earlier in the morning left the electric class with a drying track for the first race of the day. Starting from P5, Hikari Okubo lost a few positions when the race started, while Alessandro Zaccone kept his eighth place to position himself just behind his teammate. If the Italian's rhythm got better lap after lap, the Japanese saw a drop in his lap times as he appeared to be losing the rhythm. Feeling confident on his Ducati, Zaccone made his way to the fourth position when he saw the checkered flag, his best race result of the season so far. Okubo went down to P10, a disappointing result for the number 78 who was hoping for more.

Race 2
For the second race, Okubo and Zaccone lined up again from P5 and P8 at the Sachsenring. When lights went out, both Hikari and Alessandro each lost two positions within the first lap, holding Matteo Ferrari in a sandwich between them, until the later one overtook the number 78 in the next lap. The front group seemed to draw itself rather quickly, and Okubo led the second group. With four laps to go, Italian Zaccone overtook his teammate to make it to P9, seconds before the race was red flagged due to weather conditions as small drops of rain started to fall. Enough laps (six full) having been raced, the race was declared completed, meaning that the standings returned to what they were at the end of the six laps. Hikari Okubo completed the race in eighth, with his teammate Alessandro Zaccone finishing just behind, in ninth.

Alessandro Zaccone moves up to eighth in the riders championship as he adds another twenty points to his bag, while Hikari Okubo heads to Assen in twelfth and will hope to score more points next week before the summer break.

Alessandro Zaccone

"During the weekend, we had a problem with the front tyre, and I felt worse in the races because I struggled to overtake. Race 1 was good of course, but I am a bit disappointed with the result of race 2. We learned a lot about the Ducati, so we need to put everything together so we can have a good weekend in Assen next week.”

Hiraki Okubo

"Overall the weekend was good. We did a good qualifying, but then in the races, my starts were not good enough and I lost positions in both race 1 and 2. The lap times were not constant because I saw a tyre drop, and I ended in tenth. The afternoon race, I tried to go with a more positive mindset, and told myself that I had to stay with the front group. After a couple of laps, the gap became bigger, and I finished in eighth. It is not so bad, but we are aiming for higher positions. I look forward to going to Assen for the Dutch Grand Prix."

Hervé Poncharal

Team Manager

"Interesting weekend for the Tech3 E-Racing team here at the Sachsenring. Both riders started well as they both got their best qualifying result of the season, which clearly helped them to be in better positions for the races. Although Hikari Okubo was better placed on the grid, Alessandro Zaccone fought all the way to P4, 1.3 seconds from the winner, which is his best result of the season. His teammate closed the top 10, which was still a good result. We were hoping to replicate these performances during the afternoon race, but the weather did not help as it started to rain a lot after a couple of laps, and we saw the red flag. The classification taken was the one from the lap completed before the red flag, so Hikari took P8 and Alessandro P9. A shame because I think that we could have done a bit better, but this is the game. Both scored good points in the championship with Zaccone moving up to eighth in the standings, and Hikari now sitting in twelfth. All riders are quite close, so we are heading to Assen with the target to have both our riders in the top 10 before heading to the summer break."