Morning session sees lap record broken

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

After Sebastien Buemi came within touching distance of the lap record yesterday, Jean-Eric Vergne went one better and set a new lap record for a Formula E car around Donington Park, beating the Mahindra of Felix Rosenqvist who was the first to break Lucas di Grassi’s time from last year.

In a relatively incident-free session, Rosenqvist lapped his Mahindra round in 1:29.719s for a new lap record, before having to be towed back to the pits after a breakdown on his next lap, punctuating the first red flag of the day.

Despite the early promise shown by the team, the Swede remained realistic about the pace of the car and expects the record to be beaten further.

“I think we were one of the earlier guys to make a 200kW lap, so I would say something when we see all the other guys do it,” explained Rosenqvist. “So far the car feels good, reliability is decent at the moment, there’s still some small things we are trying to solve but honestly we are not looking at lap time. We obviously did 200kW laps, we have six for the three days, so we have to use them at some point. If the lap time is good that’s always a bonus, but as I said I would look more closely when everyone has done their laps.”

As it turns out the lap record was beaten further as Vergne pounced in his Techeetah to take the fastest time of the morning with a 1:29.634s, less than a tenth ahead of his nearest rival.

Reigning champion Buemi ended the morning third fastest with another lap time under the previous record with a 1:29.765s ahead of Nick Heidfeld in the second Mahindra.

There was also another positive showing from the Dragon Racing duo as Loic Duval, having spent the first hour stuck in the garage, came flying out of the blocks and went 1.4s quicker than then-fastest man Buemi before being topped by Rosenqvist half an hour later.

With Jerome d’Ambrosio also showing strong pace in the sister car, Dragon Racing ended the morning fifth and sixth.

With just under an hour to run of the morning session, Engel brought out the second red flag as his Venturi came to a stop at the pit lane exit. The stoppage was only brief, however, as the German got his car restarted and returned to the garage.

With more running still to come this afternoon, it would come as no surprise to see the lap record beaten further as teams turn up the wick and start pushing for 200kW laps.

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_single_image image=”7638″ img_size=”large” alignment=”center” title=”Day 2 morning”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]

Images courtesy of Rajan Jangda

[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]