Practice report
Formula E Buenos Aires ePrix
Buenos Aires ePrix: Bird goes quickest in opening practice
DS Virgin's Sam Bird set the fastest time of the first 45-minute practice session of Formula E's Buenos Aires ePix.
Sam Smith
Edited: Feb 6, 2016, 3:39 PM
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The Briton's 1m09.913s time was slower than last year’s first practice session benchmark, which had been set by current points leader Sebastien Buemi on a 1m09.475s.
Bird was the only DS Virgin driver to take part in the session after Jean-Eric Vergne was taken ill overnight and is set to be ruled out of competing at all this weekend.
In the meantime, Daniel Abt placed second in his Abt Schaeffler FE01 with a 1m10.302s, while the NEXTEV duo of Nelson Piquet and Oliver Turvey were third and fourth, underlining improved performance for the team's car.
Buemi sat fifth ahead of title rival Lucas di Grassi, who momentarily stopped on the track before rebooting his Abt Schaeffler FE01 and continuing.
Formula E debutant Mike Conway had an impressive first session and was immediately on the pace, placing 12th with a 1m12.209s lap in his Venturi VM200-FE-01
The session was red-flagged after just seven minutes when Simona de Silvestro crashed her Andretti Spark-Renault, having hit a bump as she exited the pits.
Other incidents saw both Salvador Duran (Team Aguri) and Bruno Senna (Mahindra) run off in to the escape road at Turn 10 and Turn 4 respectively, while Robin Frijns (Andretti) and Piquet had lurid moments at the turn one hairpin.
Frijns later stopped on the track with an apparent software problem.
Yellow flags were briefly also shown for a dog which managed to get through to one of the escape roads. Thankfully, the canine intruder retreated before entering the actual circuit.
Practice results:
PosDriverTeamTimeGap 1 
Sam Bird Virgin Racing 1:09.913 2 
Daniel Abt Audi Sport Team Abt 1:10.302 +0.389 3 
Nelson Piquet Jr. 
China Racing 1:10.717 +0.804 4 Oliver Turvey China Racing 1:10.752 +0.839 5 
Sébastien Buemi 
DAMS 1:10.880 +0.967 6 Lucas di Grassi Audi Sport Team Abt 1:11.152 +1.239 7 Stéphane Sarrazin 
Venturi 1:11.232 +1.319 8 Nicolas Prost DAMS 1:11.291 +1.378 9 
Robin Frijns 
Andretti Autosport 1:11.429 +1.516 10 
Antonio Felix da Costa 
Team Aguri 1:11.690 +1.777 11 Loic Duval Dragon Racing 1:11.948 +2.035 12 Mike Conway Venturi 1:12.209 +2.296 13 
Jérôme d'Ambrosio Dragon Racing 1:12.209 +2.296 14 
Salvador Duran Team Aguri 1:12.343 +2.430 15 Simona de Silvestro Andretti Autosport 1:12.432 +2.519 16 Bruno Senna 
Mahindra Racing 1:12.440 +2.527 17 Nick Heidfeld Mahindra Racing 1:12.578 +2.665
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