Practice report
Formula E Diriyah ePrix I
Diriyah E-Prix: Rowland remains on top in second practice
Oliver Rowland completed a clean sweep of Formula E practice sessions for the Diriyah E-Prix, the Mahindra driver heading Friday's FP2 ahead of the opening qualifying of the season.
Jake Boxall-Legge
Edited: Jan 28, 2022, 4:22 PM
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Having already led the way in the opening session on Thursday night, Rowland picked up from where he left off and set a 1m08.957s late on in the session, which managed to withstand the flurry of laps towards its climax.
Envisions Robin Frijns made a bid for the fastest time towards the end of the session, but a lock-up and traffic ahead put a damper on his lap after posting the fastest opening sector.
High track evolution towards the end of the session brought the laptimes below the 70-second range for the first time this weekend, as the dust that had pervaded the circuit continued to be cleared by running on track.
Mitch Evans was the first to beat Rowland's timesheet-topper from FP1, posting a 1m10.479s and then taking two-hundredths of a second out of his own time - both enough to see off a full-power effort from Jean-Eric Vergne.
Vergne's DS Techeetah teammate Antonio Felix da Costa then beat Evans and was momentarily quickest before Pascal Wehrlein was the first to dive below the 1m10s to log a 1m09.973s.
Shaking off his FP1 incident, Nyck de Vries made up for lost time and beat Wehrlein's lap to sit atop the order, but his Mercedes stablemate Stoffel Vandoorne began the final 10 minutes as the fastest driver - going nearly two-tenths faster than de Vries.
Venturi's Edoardo Mortara, also propelled by the Mercedes powertrain, was able to wrest control of the session from Vandoorne - but was immediately beaten by Dragon Penske's Sergio Sette Camara.
Nick Cassidy was next to pick up the baton, bringing the times closer to the 1m09s mark, before handing off to Sam Bird - before Jake Dennis set a pleasing 1m09.000s.
Although Dennis had hoped to remain atop the standings, Rowland threw in his fastest effort with about a minute to spare - with Bird also getting into the 1m08s by the close of the session.
Dennis remained third ahead of da Costa, while Frijns' lock-up kept him in fifth place, over a tenth ahead of Wehrlein.
Vergne was seventh quickest ahead of Cassidy, as new Nissan e.dams recruit Maximilian Gunther placed ninth ahead of Andretti rookie Oliver Askew.
Formula E's all-new qualifying system follows, which will use a knockout format to set the grid for the opening Diriyah E-Prix race.
Diriyah E-Prix - Second practice results:
Cla # Driver Team Time Gap 1 30 Oliver Rowland
Mahindra Racing 1'08.957 2 10
Sam Bird
Jaguar Racing 1'08.972 0.015 3 27
Jake Dennis
Avalanche Andretti Formula E 1'09.000 0.043 4 13 Antonio Felix da Costa
Techeetah 1'09.048 0.091 5 4
Robin Frijns
Virgin Racing 1'09.070 0.113 6 94
Pascal Wehrlein
Porsche Team 1'09.172 0.215 7 25
Jean-Eric Vergne
Techeetah 1'09.208 0.251 8 37
Nick Cassidy
Virgin Racing 1'09.255 0.298 9 22
Maximilian Gunther
DAMS 1'09.413 0.456 10 28
Oliver Askew
Avalanche Andretti Formula E 1'09.502 0.545 11 7 Sergio Sette Camara
Dragon Racing 1'09.508 0.551 12 48
Edoardo Mortara
Venturi 1'09.518 0.561 13 11
Lucas di Grassi
Venturi 1'09.541 0.584 14 9
Mitch Evans
Jaguar Racing 1'09.656 0.699 15 36
Andre Lotterer
Porsche Team 1'09.718 0.761 16 5
Stoffel Vandoorne
Mercedes 1'09.740 0.783 17 23
Sébastien Buemi
DAMS 1'09.806 0.849 18 17
Nyck de Vries
Mercedes 1'09.906 0.949 19 33
Dan Ticktum
NIO Formula E Team 1'09.962 1.005 20 29
Alexander Sims
Mahindra Racing 1'10.157 1.200 21 3
Oliver Turvey
NIO Formula E Team 1'10.520 1.563 22 99
Antonio Giovinazzi
Dragon Racing 1'10.590 1.633 View full results
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