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Donington Park Formula E test: Lucas di Grassi fastest on day two

Lucas di Grassi set the pace for the Audi-backed Abt team on the second day of Formula E testing at Donington Park on Friday

The ex-Formula 1 racer just edged his sportscar rival Sebastien Buemi - fastest on day one - with a 1m31.973s.

Buemi's e.dams entry was just one tenth of a second back, while a top five lockout by ex-F1 drivers was completed by Nick Heidfeld, Scott Speed and Bruno Senna.

Friday's times ended up being much faster than the laps set on Thursday after a temporary chicane on the exit of the Old Hairpin was removed.

Several drivers, including Jarno Trulli, Karun Chandhok and Antonio Garcia, made contact with the tyre barriers that formed the chicane, and the laptimes at the front improved by nearly four seconds following the change.

Di Grassi, who was driving two cars in the absence of his GP2-competing team-mate Daniel Abt, said: "It was my first time driving the car with full power and I'm really pleased with the performance.

"With Daniel at Silverstone I had the use of two cars so was able to do a lot of work in race mode.

"We had very little problems and I'm looking forward to getting in the car next week."

With 16 of the 19 cars lapping within five seconds of each other, the rear of the field was brought up by Dragon Racing's Oriol Servia and Mike Conway, who were both more than 10 seconds off the pace.

Jerome d'Ambrosio set the pace in the morning running, but he slipped to ninth by the end of the day.

Jamie Alguersuari - who was 16th fastest - lost some track time after damaging a pullrod by going off at a fast corner.

With DTM racer Antonio Felix da Costa leaving the test to join up with Red Bull's F1 team at the British Grand Prix, his Aguri seat was taken by reigning GP2 champion Fabio Leimer.

Pos  Driver             Team      Time       Gap       Laps
 1.  Lucas di Grassi    Abt       1m31.973s            37
 2.  Sebastien Buemi    e.dams    1m32.089s  +0.116s   41
 3.  Nick Heidfeld      Venturi   1m32.373s  +0.400s   49
 4.  Scott Speed        Andretti  1m32.632s  +0.559s   32
 5.  Bruno Senna        Mahindra  1m32.960s  +0.987s   47
 6.  Antonio Garcia     China     1m32.966s  +0.993s   48
 7.  Nicolas Prost      e.dams    1m33.040s  +1.067s   44
 8.  Sam Bird           Virgin    1m33.072s  +1.099s   56
 9.  Jerome d'Ambrosio  China     1m33.178s  +1.205s   45
10.  Jarno Trulli       Trulli    1m33.299s  +1.326s   30
11.  Franck Montagny    Andretti  1m33.754s  +1.781s   36
12.  Fabio Leimer       Aguri     1m33.792s  +1.819s   51
13.  Stephane Sarrazin  Venturi   1m34.006s  +2.033s   51
14.  Katherine Legge    Aguri     1m34.071s  +2.098s   37
15.  Michela Cerruti    Trulli    1m36.064s  +4.091s   25
16.  Jaime Alguersuari  Virgin    1m36.962s  +4.989s   42
17.  Karun Chandhok     Mahindra  1m37.415s  +5.442s   17
18.  Oriol Servia       Dragon    1m43.239s  +11.037s  8
19.  Mike Conway        Dragon    1m44.698s  +12.725s  7

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