FE Mexico City: Renault e.dams driver Buemi fastest across practice
Renault e.dams driver Sebastien Buemi led the way in the two Formula E practice sessions ahead of Saturday's Mexico City ePrix
Reigning champion Buemi, who travelled overnight from the World Endurance Championship prologue at Monza, set the pace in the morning's first session with a best effort of 1m02.222s, heading Faraday Future Dragon pair Loic Duval and Jerome d'Ambrosio.
In pursuit of a fourth-straight Formula E win this weekend, Buemi then trimmed just under a tenth of a second from that effort in the later session to ensure a practice clean sweep.
His eventual fastest time in FP2, a 1m02.164s, eclipsed rival Lucas Di Grassi's fastest lap by 0.111 seconds.
Jean-Eric Vergne posted a best lap of 1m02.286s to grab third in the second session in his Renault powered Techeetah, with Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld fourth but almost 0.4 seconds in arrears to Buemi.
The next nine cars were all within a second, indicating a tight midfield battle for the second ePrix in Mexico.
Temperatures climbed between the two practice sessions, with teams spending some of the second session evaluating the thermal management of their cars ahead of the race.
Several drivers endured spins, with Robin Frijns, Adam Carroll and Loic Duval all rotating, while Jose-Maria Lopez glanced the wall in the final stages of the second session.
Formula E new boy Esteban Gutierrez made a late improvement to claim 13th in the second session, having initially languishing at the tail end of the times.
That followed a 19th-place charting in the first session for the Techeetah driver.
FIRST PRACTICE TIMES:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sebastien Buemi | e.dams | Renault | 1m02.222s | 29 |
2 | Loic Duval | Dragon | Penske | 0.505s | 27 |
3 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Dragon | Penske | 0.701s | 22 |
4 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | Renault | 1.002s | 29 |
5 | Robin Frijns | Andretti | Andretti | 1.097s | 29 |
6 | Sam Bird | Virgin | DS Virgin | 1.183s | 26 |
7 | Stephane Sarrazin | Venturi | Venturi | 1.199s | 29 |
8 | Lucas di Grassi | Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 1.240s | 32 |
9 | Daniel Abt | Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 1.356s | 32 |
10 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | Jaguar | 1.399s | 28 |
11 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | Mahindra | 1.484s | 29 |
12 | Nicolas Prost | e.dams | Renault | 1.539s | 27 |
13 | Jose Maria Lopez | Virgin | DS Virgin | 1.585s | 27 |
14 | Nick Heidfeld | Mahindra | Mahindra | 1.619s | 29 |
15 | Nelson Piquet Jr. | NextEV | NEXTEV TCR | 1.712s | 33 |
16 | Oliver Turvey | NextEV | NEXTEV TCR | 1.830s | 33 |
17 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Andretti | Andretti | 1.895s | 32 |
18 | Maro Engel | Venturi | Venturi | 2.108s | 27 |
19 | Esteban Gutierrez | Techeetah | Renault | 2.113s | 34 |
20 | Adam Carroll | Jaguar | Jaguar | 2.478s | 26 |
SECOND PRACTICE TIMES:
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sebastien Buemi | e.dams | Renault | 1m02.164s | 21 |
2 | Lucas di Grassi | Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 0.111s | 19 |
3 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | Renault | 0.122s | 17 |
4 | Nick Heidfeld | Mahindra | Mahindra | 0.398s | 12 |
5 | Daniel Abt | Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 0.424s | 23 |
6 | Nelson Piquet Jr. | NextEV | NEXTEV TCR | 0.649s | 16 |
7 | Maro Engel | Venturi | Venturi | 0.675s | 23 |
8 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Andretti | Andretti | 0.691s | 15 |
9 | Oliver Turvey | NextEV | NEXTEV TCR | 0.713s | 18 |
10 | Loic Duval | Dragon | Penske | 0.718s | 17 |
11 | Stephane Sarrazin | Venturi | Venturi | 0.751s | 12 |
12 | Nicolas Prost | e.dams | Renault | 0.833s | 18 |
13 | Esteban Gutierrez | Techeetah | Renault | 0.891s | 16 |
14 | Robin Frijns | Andretti | Andretti | 1.023s | 19 |
15 | Sam Bird | Virgin | DS Virgin | 1.030s | 19 |
16 | Jose Maria Lopez | Virgin | DS Virgin | 1.133s | 20 |
17 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | Jaguar | 1.536s | 19 |
18 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Dragon | Penske | 1.583s | 18 |
19 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | Mahindra | 1.596s | 19 |
20 | Adam Carroll | Jaguar | Jaguar | 2.012s | 16 |
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.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