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Valencia Formula E test: Bird fastest, de Vries issue limits Mercedes

Envision Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird topped the first day of Formula E 2019/20 pre-season testing at Valencia as Mercedes' woes with Nyck de Vries's car continued

With most of the afternoon action dedicated to long-runs, BMW Andretti driver Maximilian Gunther's session-topping 1m15.926s effort from the morning stood as the benchmark until Sebastien Buemi (Nissan e.dams) posted a 1m15.913s just past the halfway stage of the three-hour afternoon session.

Buemi improved his best time of the day to a 1m15.882s but was shuffled down the order by a flurry of fast times being posted approaching the chequered flag.

Gunther looked to have secured the best time of the day after setting a 1m15.663s late on before Bird pipped him to the top spot by 0.093 seconds.

Antonio Felix da Costa ended up third in the afternoon session and overall with a 1m15.681s for DS Techeetah, with Mitch Evans taking fourth for Jaguar ahead of da Costa's new team-mate, reigning FE champion Jean-Eric Vergne.

Buemi ended up sixth overall as the last driver to go quicker than Gunther's fastest morning time in the afternoon session.

Oliver Rowland finished the afternoon running in seventh place in the second Nissan e.dams-run car ahead of Pascal Wehrlein (Mahindra Racing) and Bird's team-mate Robin Frijns.

Daniel Abt rounded out the top 10 for the works Audi team ahead of BMW driver Alexander Sims and Lucas di Grassi (Audi).

The afternoon running was interrupted by a single brief red flag after an hour had passed by Jaguar driver James Calado, who finished 19th in the second session, coming to a stop at the pitlane exit.

Mercedes' first day as an FE competitor ended with Stoffel Vandoorne down in 22nd place, after lapping 1.881s slower than Bird's fastest time in the afternoon, while de Vries completed just three laps in the second session.

The recently crowned Formula 2 champion stopped after an hour of the morning running had been completed after a technical issue that resulted in a blown battery fuse on his Silver Arrow 01 car.

Mercedes continued to investigate the issue as the afternoon wore and was eventually able to get de Vries out again before the chequered flag as it had hoped, but he was only briefly able to return to the track right at the very end of the day.

De Vries ended up 23rd in the afternoon running ahead of NIO 333 driver Ma Qing Hua.

Tuesday afternoon times

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 1m15.570s - 32
2 Maximilian Guenther BMW BMW 1m15.663s 0.093s 54
3 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah DS 1m15.681s 0.111s 39
4 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 1m15.724s 0.154s 46
5 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 1m15.798s 0.228s 43
6 Sebastien Buemi e.dams Nissan 1m15.882s 0.312s 29
7 Oliver Rowland e.dams Nissan 1m15.942s 0.372s 32
8 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Mahindra 1m15.975s 0.405s 36
9 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 1m16.081s 0.511s 33
10 Daniel Abt Audi Audi 1m16.084s 0.514s 35
11 Alexander Sims BMW BMW 1m16.097s 0.527s 53
12 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 1m16.140s 0.570s 33
13 Nico Muller Penske Penske 1m16.398s 0.828s 44
14 Andre Lotterer Porsche Porsche 1m16.482s 0.912s 44
15 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Mercedes 1m16.537s 0.967s 33
16 Felipe Massa Venturi Mercedes 1m16.580s 1.010s 42
17 Brendon Hartley Penske Penske 1m16.698s 1.128s 43
18 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1m16.867s 1.297s 33
19 James Calado Jaguar Jaguar 1m17.016s 1.446s 48
20 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes Mercedes 1m17.451s 1.881s 44
21 Nyck de Vries Mercedes Mercedes 1m17.654s 2.084s 3
22 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 1m18.046s 2.476s 27
23 Ma Qinghua NIO NIO 1m20.220s 4.650s 29


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