Donington Park Formula E testing: Lucas di Grassi keeps Abt on top

The Brazilian's Abt Audi Sport team-mate Daniel Abt set a new unofficial lap record on Monday and di Grassi fell just short of that benchmark as he topped the morning session on a 1m30.312s.

Despite light rain through lunch di Grassi then broke his team-mate's record with a 1m29.920s with an hour left in the afternoon to finish the test almost half a second clear of Sebastien Buemi.

The Renault e.dams man demonstrated good pace when on longer runs in the afternoon, and improved in the closing stages with a full-power qualifying run but could only manage a 1m30.382s.

Di Grassi was satisfied with his performance, but emphasised that FE's test venue was very different in nature to the championship's racetracks.

"Of course you have to run a couple of laps in qualifying mode, we have to verify things are working well," he told AUTOSPORT.

"But to be quickest at Donington really doesn't prove anything - you have to be quick at street tracks. That's our focus."

Bruno Senna put his Mahindra M2ELECTRO third in the quicker afternoon session, just under two tenths of a second behind Buemi and 0.007s clear of the second Renault Z.E.15 in the hands of Nicolas Prost, who stopped on track in the morning with a gearbox issue.

Nick Heidfeld was the last man within a second of di Grassi as the German continued Mahindra's efficient pre-season with the fifth-best time - though his earlier effort of 1m30.674s, good for second in the morning, would have been enough to edge Prost for fourth later on.

Jean-Eric Vergne looked as though he may topple di Grassi with a last-lap flier, but although the DS Virgin Racing man set the fastest first sector of anyone he faded throughout the lap and wound up 1.005s slower in sixth.

Team China Racing did not attempt qualifying runs with 2014/15 champion Nelson Piquet Jr or the Brazilian's likely team-mate Oliver Turvey, and they were at the bottom end of the timesheets in the morning and afternoon - while McLaren Formula 1 test driver Turvey also stopped on track after the chequered flag.

Simona de Silvestro managed a handful of installation laps as Andretti Autosport's troubled programme continued.

She was initially prevented from running as the team worked on solving a software issue on its Andretti ATEC-01, and when that was fixed it suffered a battery failure - though she did at least make it out for a seventh untimed lap late on.

For the second test in a row the Trulli team failed to complete a lap, and was not even present in its garages as it worked on its embattled Motomatica JT-01s in its main Donington base.

TUESDAY TEST RESULTS:

Pos  Driver               Team      Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Lucas di Grassi      Abt       1m29.920s           45
 2.  Sebastien Buemi      e.dams    1m30.382s  +0.462s  38
 3.  Bruno Senna          Mahindra  1m30.670s  +0.750s  46
 4.  Nick Heidfeld        Mahindra  1m30.674s  +0.754s  45
 5.  Nicolas Prost        e.dams    1m30.677s  +0.757s  36
 6.  Jean-Eric Vergne     Virgin    1m30.925s  +1.005s  44
 7.  Jerome D'Ambrosio    Dragon    1m31.144s  +1.224s  71
 8.  Nathanael Berthon    Aguri     1m31.185s  +1.265s  68
 9.  Stephane Sarrazin    Venturi   1m31.241s  +1.321s  45
10.  Jacques Villeneuve   Venturi   1m31.489s  +1.569s  45
11.  Nelson Piquet Jr     China     1m34.133s  +4.213s  33
12.  Oliver Turvey        China     1m35.770s  +5.850s  40
13.  Simona de Silvestro  Andretti  no time             10
14.  Jarno Trulli         Trulli    no time             0