A few hours later the fire that occurred on Niki Tuuli's MotoE, and while the investigation is obviously underway, the first witnesses are speaking.
According to them, the Finnish pilot's Energica was charging in one of the 12 boxes, each comprising 2 Enel chargers. According to some witnesses, the motorcycle's visual and audible alarms then went off, indicating that the Lithium-Ion battery was overheating, perhaps because the charger would not stop charging. Others speak of a small explosion.
Anyway, we immediately started trying to stem the process in the MotoE paddock before taking the bike out to tow it to a more isolated place, in this case grass, in order to to avoid a complete disaster like in Jerez. The firefighters (there are always at least two dedicated to this task) then began to hose down the motorcycle, not to put out the fire (a Lithium-Ion battery fire does not go out before complete combustion), but to try to cool the battery, the only possible way to stem thermal runaway.
Like what prevails in airplanes for cell phones and computers, there is even a sort of mobile swimming pool into which you are supposed to throw the motorcycle and close the lid, always with the aim of cooling it and to confine. Although present at the scene of the fire, we have no testimony indicating whether it was used or not (see the photos on GPone).
Whatever the official press releases suggest, the cause of this incident closely resembles what happened in Jerez, even if the consequences are infinitely less serious, since FP2 was still able to take place normally.
However, the meetings have continued since then, and, at the time of publishing this article, the MotoE have only been in charge for 30 minutes for FP3 which should take place normally tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. It takes roughly an hour to load the motorcycles, and this evening, the scene takes place under the supervision of a dozen firefighters...
