Buemi tops morning two time sheets

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With a change to yesterday’s weather conditions, it was a bright and clear morning at the Donington Park race track, host once again to the FIA Formula E pre-season testing. Although this is test day number five, it is the second day of testing in the second week. The teams are given a total of six days of testing before the season opener in Hong Kong next month.

Many cars, including the likes of season one champion Nelson Piquet, made their way onto the track as soon as the session started at 9:00am BST. It was Jean-Eric Vergne who was the fastest as the session began, continuing on from his impressive performance on Monday, setting a 1:32.757 this morning to put him top of the timesheets. Soon more cars joined track and five of the twenty drivers had set a lap time. Unfortunately a red flag was soon issued and cars were forced to abandon their laps. The red flag was once again for Robin Frijns who was all too familiar with the red flag scenario, being the reason for several yesterday afternoon.

Once the session welcomed green flags, no time was wasted in getting on to the track. Soon the Mahindra of Nick Heidfeld went quickest, knocking Vergne into third. A time of 1:32.662 put the German driver at the top with Brazilian Lucas di Grassi only +0.072 behind giving him second place in the standings.

With ever-improving track conditions, the Techeetahs of Ma Qing Hua and Vergne shared the title of fastest man for a while, with Vergne snatching the fastest time from his team mate. Although already sitting comfortably as fastest, Vergne continued to go quicker in the second sector and erased even more time off his efforts – rewarding himself with a 1:32.092.

As with motorsport, it wasn’t long until someone came along and did one better, well in fact one whole second better. Mahindra’s newbie Felix Rosenqvist completed an incredible time of 1:31.076, putting him a second clear of the rest of the field.

Scooping our jaws from the media centre floor, Kiwi Mitch Evans caused our hearts to stop beating once again. The Jaguar driver, who it must be said hasn’t shown fantastic pace during his Formula E testing debut, took the title of fastest man around the Donington track. He stayed as quickest for a large chunk of time until his team mate Adam Carroll became the fastest man on track.

During the time Evans sat as session leader we experienced another red flag, this time as a result of Dragon Racing’s Jerome D’Ambrosio who caused damage to a bollard that needed to be fixed for the session to continue.

Venturi also showed good pace, German driver Maro Engel slipping his car into third place with an hour left of the session. His team mate also enjoyed his time on track until he was forced to stop on track, resulting in a red flag.

Perhaps the story of the morning was that current Formula E driver’s champion Sebastian Buemi walked away with the new lap record, a 1:29.496 with team mate Nico Prost finishing the session just +0.7s behind him in third.

Towards the end of the session, Jean-Eric Vergne made an uncharacteristic mistake and went off track, resulting in damage to the rear of the car. Missing a rear wing, the electric vehicle was brought back to the pits where mechanics would be working hard to get it ready for the next session this afternoon.

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Image courtesy of Rajan Jangda

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