Buenos Aires ePrix: Bird tops FP2, Di Grassi crashes
Sam Bird set the fastest time in the second free practice session for Formula E’s Buenos Aires ePrix.
Photo by: Motorsport Images
The DS Virgin Racing driver won last year’s race in Argentina and improved contentiously to head the session on a 1m08.792s.
That lap came after Lucas di Grassi crashed in his Abt Audi Sport entry and brought out the yellow flags at the start of the middle sector.
Bird insisted over the team radio that he backed off under the yellow, but still found enough time elsewhere to leapfrog Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist.
“It’s gone OK so far,” said Bird. “The car feels OK, we’ve had some issues to combat and I’ll have to combat them for the rest of the weekend.”
The British driver said the problem was “temperature-related”, having already suffered an issue with a faulty regen paddle – how he initiates harvesting energy from the electric motor – in Friday’s shakedown.
Marrakesh polesitter Rosenqvist was 0.165s slower than Bird, with di Grassi third ahead of championship leader Sebastien Buemi, whose second 200kW effort was ruined by the yellow flags.
FP2 had only just resumed when di Grassi shunted.
Loic Duval shed a wheel on his Faraday Future Dragon Racing car just after the halfway mark of the 30-minute session, which caused a red flag.
Before that, Oliver Turvey had clipped the wall at the Turn 9/10 chicane, and Jaguar’s Adam Carroll and Bird spun at Turn 5 earlier on.
FP1 pacesetter Jose Maria Lopez was only 17th fastest in the second of the DS Virgin cars.
Free Practice 2 results
Pos. | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Sam Bird | DS Virgin | 1:08.792 | 17 | |
2 | Felix Rosenqvist | Mahindra | 1:08.957 | 0.165 | 15 |
3 | Lucas di Grassi | ABT Schaeffler | 1:09.054 | 0.262 | 15 |
4 | Sebastien Buemi | Renault | 1:09.127 | 0.335 | 15 |
5 | Robin Frijns | Andretti | 1:09.166 | 0.374 | 16 |
6 | Nelson Piquet Jr | NEXTEV TCR | 1:09.213 | 0.421 | 17 |
7 | Oliver Turvey | NEXTEV TCR | 1:09.265 | 0.473 | 18 |
8 | Jean-Eric Vergne | Techeetah | 1:09.314 | 0.522 | 14 |
9 | Nicolas Prost | Renault | 1:09.472 | 0.680 | 13 |
10 | Maro Engel | Venturi | 1:09.596 | 0.804 | 18 |
11 | Daniel Abt | ABT Schaeffler | 1:09.613 | 0.821 | 20 |
12 | Antonio Felix da Costa | Andretti | 1:09.742 | 0.950 | 14 |
13 | Nick Heidfeld | Mahindra | 1:09.846 | 1.054 | 12 |
14 | Stephane Sarrazin | Venturi | 1:10.140 | 1.348 | 18 |
15 | Ma Qing Hua | Techeetah | 1:10.320 | 1.528 | 17 |
16 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | 1:10.480 | 1.688 | 18 |
17 | Jose Maria Lopez | DS Virgin | 1:10.644 | 1.852 | 17 |
18 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Dragon | 1:10.884 | 2.092 | 17 |
19 | Loïc Duval | Dragon | 1:11.486 | 2.694 | 7 |
20 | Adam Carroll | Jaguar | 1:11.792 | 3.000 | 18 |
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