Beijing ePrix: Prost heads Buemi in Friday test as Renault dominates

Nicolas Prost headed the closest non-Renault powered car by a massive 2.114s during the 30-minute session.

The Frenchman’s 1m37.291s, set on his final lap, was almost eight seconds quicker than last year’s official race lap record set by Takuma Sato.

The time was also four seconds faster than last year’s pole lap, which was, however, set on a track which featured one more chicane.

The other DAMS driver Sebastien Buemi was 0.631s adrift of his teammate in second place, while Jean-Eric Vergne took his DS Virgin car to third on a 1m39.405s.

The Renault e.DAMS squad also completed the most laps of any team with a combined total of 28 tours of the 3.439-kilometre Beijing circuit.

The pair of Mahindra Racing cars of Bruno Senna and Nick Heidfeld placed fourth and fifth respectively in the new Mahindra M2ELECTRO entries.

Reigning champions NEXTEV had a mixed session with Oliver Turvey rounding out the top six in, but teammate and reigning champion Nelson Piquet causing a red flag midway through the session when he stopped his car at Turn 10 with a mechanical problem.

Other incidents that occurred during the half an hour included several trips down the escape roads at Turns 4 and 5, with Piquet and Nathanael Berthon locking their brakes in spectacular fashion.

All bar the Trulli Formula E drivers registered times this afternoon. The Italian team has been delayed in completing their cars after apparent customs hold-ups in getting parts for their new Motomatica JT-01 to be put together ahead of the mandatory technical checks.

Their participation in the meeting is understood to be in grave doubt and an official FIA bulletin on the situation is expected later today.

Practice, qualifying and the Beijing ePrix itself all take place on Saturday.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Delay
1	Nicolas Prost	Renault e.Dams	1'37.291
2	Sebastien Buemi	Renault e.Dams	1'37.912	0.621
3	Jean-Eric Vergne	DS Virgin	1'39.405	2.114
4	Bruno Senna	Mahindra	1'39.670	2.379
5	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra	1'39.909	2.618
6	Oliver Turvey	NEXTEV TCR	1'40.148	2.857
7	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Dragon	1'40.410	3.119
8	Lucas di Grassi	ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport	1'40.531	3.240
9	Daniel Abt	ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport	1'40.852	3.561
10	Sam Bird	DS Virgin	1'41.146	3.855
11	Stephane Sarrazin	Venturi	1'41.387	4.096
12	Antonio Felix da Costa	Team Aguri	1'41.556	4.265
13	Nelson Piquet	NEXTEV TCR	1'41.938	4.647
14	Loic Duval	Dragon	1'42.016	4.725
15	Robin Frijns	Andretti	1'42.635	5.344
16	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti	1'43.657	6.366
17	Nathanael Berthon	Team Aguri	1'45.561	8.27
18	Jacques Villeneuve	Venturi	1'46.425	9.134
	Salvador Duran	Trulli	No Time
	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Trulli	No Time