Vergne ends opening day of second Formula E test on top
Jean-Eric Vergne led the pack on the first day of Formula E's second pre-season test at Donington Park, lapping within 0.006s of the lap record he established in the first test.
Photo by: John Rowley
The Techeetah driver was the first man to dip into the 1m29s, clocking the fastest lap of 1m29.640s with around an hour remaining, but just falling short of his 1m29.634s benchmark from last month.
Vergne was followed by DS Virgin's Sam Bird, the best of the drivers who had been travelling back from the WEC 6 Hours of Mexico last weekend, with a best time 0.284s off the pace.
Renault's Nicolas Prost slotted himself in third and was the only other driver to breach the 90-second barrier, 0.330s back from countryman Vergne.
That pushed Dragon's Jerome D'Ambrosio to fourth, with reigning champion Sebastien Buemi completing the top five, just over half a second slower than Vergne.
The Swiss driver missed the morning session entirely, having travelled back from Mexico. Venturi duo Stephane Sarrazin and Maro Engel were also absent for the morning.
Behind, Daniel Abt in the lead Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport car ended sixth, with Jaguar's Adam Carroll recording the team's best testing time yet in seventh. The British marque's new signing Mitch Evans ended the day in 14th.
DS Virgin's Jose Maria Lopez was eighth fastest having topping the one-hour morning session, which began in damp conditinos, fresh from provisionally winning his third WTCC title in Japan.
The top 10 was completed by Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld and Techeetah's Ma Qing Hua.
In all there were nine red flag stoppages during the day, one of which was caused by a crash for Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa.
The second Andretti car of Robin Frijns and Dragon's Loic Duval were also responsible for delays.
Day 1 times (afternoon):
Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | 1'29.640 | |
2 | Sam Bird | DS-Virgin | 1'29.924 | 0.284 |
3 | Nicolas Prost | Renault | 1'29.970 | 0.330 |
4 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Dragon | 1'30.013 | 0.373 |
5 | Sebastien Buemi | Renault | 1'30.159 | 0.519 |
6 | Daniel Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 1'30.200 | 0.560 |
7 | Adam Carroll | Jaguar | 1'30.713 | 1.073 |
8 | Jose Maria Lopez | DS-Virgin | 1'30.852 | 1.212 |
9 | Nick Heidfeld | Mahindra | 1'30.885 | 1.245 |
10 | Ma Qing Hua | Techeetah | 1'31.181 | 1.541 |
11 | Lucas di Grassi | ABT Schaeffler | 1'31.231 | 1.591 |
12 | Stephane Sarrazin | Venturi | 1'31.538 | 1.898 |
13 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Andretti | 1'31.559 | 1.919 |
14 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | 1'31.699 | 2.059 |
15 | Maro Engel | Venturi | 1'32.371 | 2.731 |
16 | Nelson Piquet Jr. | NEXTEV TCR | 1'32.493 | 2.853 |
17 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | 1'32.694 | 3.054 |
18 | Loic Duval | Dragon | 1'32.786 | 3.146 |
19 | Oliver Turvey | NEXTEV TCR | 1'33.183 | 3.543 |
20 | Robin Frijns | Andretti | 1'33.236 | 3.596 |
Be part of Motorsport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments