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Buemi fastest in Berlin free practice

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Sebastien Buemi (Renault e.dams) set an exclamation mark in the first free practice session on the new race track in Berlin. The Swiss driver finished the first session of the day ahead of Oliver Turvey (NEXTEV TCR) thanks to a 200kwh lap, and third-fastest Lucas di Grassi (ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport) was the quickest of those without a full power lap.

The first practice session on German soil was a busy one: Everyone was out on track immediately to make the best out of the lovely morning. Buemi led the way in the early stage of the session, and drove the fastest flying lap of 1:02.847. Seconds afterwards however, Loic Duval bettered the e.dams driver’s time be three hundredths of a second. Robin Frjns made a jump to the top as well before Buemi reclaimed the top spot.

The times kept tumbling down and crept closer to the one minute barrier, which was broken by Lucas di Grassi. The ABT driver jumped ahead of Buemi around the 30 minute mark and settled down in the top spot ahead of his Swiss rival, Jean-Eric Vergne, Mike Conway, and Stephane Sarrazin, who were all below the one minute barrier.

A yellow flag was shown for a few seconds when Vergne outbraked himself and stopped in the hairpin at Turn 5, however, it did not disturb the session and surely not Vergne’s team mate Sam Bird, who also broke the one minute barrier jumping up to fourth place.

Oliver Turvey then took over the top of the time sheets. The NEXTEV TCR driver was the first one to do a 200kwh power lap, and settled down in the top spot with a comfortable gap of almost one second to Di Grassi.

With 15 minutes left to run, Nicolas Prost had a little scary moment: The Frenchman tried to overtake Ma Quing Hua, but slipped and nearly lost control of his car. The Chinese was then shown the black and white flag for ignoring the blue flags he had been shown earlier.

1 minute before the end of the session, the yellow flag made another appearance. Bruno Senna stopped on the race track after failing to make it through Turn 5. The Mahindra driver blocked off the road, his nose touching the tyre wall, but even though he managed to continue it was not fast enough so that Frijns behind him had no chance but to take the emergency exit so as to avoid coming together with the stranded car.

In the dying minutes of the session, the lap times started tumbling again. Buemi jumped up to the first place ahead of Turvey, doing the session’s only other full power lap, a 57.648, despite running just a bit wide through Turns 5 and 6. Turvey finished the session in second place, half a second slower than Buemi.

Lucas di Grassi was the fastest of those without a 200kwh power lap with a time of 58.916, only two tenths of a second off the NEXTEV driver ahead. Prost finished the session in fourth place ahead of Sam Bird, Loic Duval, Mike Conway, Jerome d’Ambrosio, Stephane Sarrazin, and Daniel Abt.

Renate Jungert| e-racing.net

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Image courtesy of FIA Formula E Media

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