Practice report
Formula E Diriyah E-Prix I
Diriyah E-Prix: De Vries leads Mercedes 1-2 in second practice
Nyck de Vries led a 1-2 finish for the Mercedes Formula E team in a truncated second practice for the Diriyah E-Prix, which was interrupted by two separate red flags.
Rachit Thukral
Edited: Feb 26, 2021, 12:03 PM
Copy link
Share on Viber
De Vries set the early pace in the 30-minute afternoon session, his time of 1m10.535s putting him well clear of the top Nissan e.dams of Oliver Rowland.
The first red flag was waved with 17 minutes on the clock when the rear of Muller's Dragon Penske snapped going into Turn 7, and he hit the barriers rear-first and suffered heavy damage to the bodywork.
When practice resumed six minutes later, laptimes tumbled at a rapid rate, with a number of drivers breaking into 1m09s.
Rowland was the first driver to dip into the 1m08s, before de Vries put himself back on top with a time of 1m08.853s.
That was fractionally quicker than his Thursday's benchmark which was set in much cooler conditions during the night-time, and remained unbeaten after Robin Frijns brought out another red flag after crashing his Envision Virgin Racing with just two minutes to go.
Stoffel Vandoorne finished two tenths behind his teammate in second, while Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara's time of 1m08.836s effectively made it a one-two-three for Mercedes powertrains.
Rowland was shuffled down to fourth in the final order ahead of Porsche's Andre Lotterer, and despite a brush with the wall Sergio Sette Camara was a strong sixth for the Dragon Penske team that is starting the season with the same powertrain as last season.
Alex Lynn was Mahindra's top runner in seventh, half a second down on de Vries, while Sebastien Buemi was eighth in the second of the Nissan cars ahead of Mitch Evans (Jaguar) and Maximilian Gunther (BMW Andretti).
Sam Bird was 11th in his second practice outing with his new team Jaguar, while Frijns's previous lap of 1m09.539s was good enough for 12th despite his late crash in the session.
The two DS Techeetah cars were surprisingly off the pace with Antonio Felix da Costa and Jean-Eric Vergne finishing 18th and 20th respectively, although not all drivers were able to complete full power laps in the session.
Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap 1 Nyck de Vries
Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team 16 1'08.583 2 Stoffel Vandoorne
Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team 16 1'08.760 0.177 3 Edoardo Mortara
Venturi 16 1'08.836 0.253 4
Oliver Rowland
DAMS 16 1'08.887 0.304 5
Andre Lotterer
Porsche Team 16 1'08.955 0.372 6
Sergio Sette Camara
DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT 14 1'09.121 0.538 7 Alex Lynn
Mahindra Racing 16 1'09.195 0.612 8
Sébastien Buemi
DAMS 15 1'09.232 0.649 9
Mitch Evans
Jaguar Racing 15 1'09.398 0.815 10 Maximilian Gunther
Andretti Autosport 12 1'09.455 0.872 11
Sam Bird
Jaguar Racing 15 1'09.506 0.923 12 Robin Frijns
Virgin Racing 9 1'09.539 0.956 13
René Rast
Team Abt 14 1'09.743 1.160 14
Norman Nato
Venturi 15 1'09.808 1.225 15
Lucas di Grassi
Team Abt 13 1'09.919 1.336 16
Pascal Wehrlein
Porsche Team 15 1'10.046 1.463 17
Alexander Sims
Mahindra Racing 15 1'10.077 1.494 18
Antonio Felix da Costa
Techeetah 12 1'10.155 1.572 19
Oliver Turvey
NIO Formula E Team 14 1'10.341 1.758 20
Jean-Eric Vergne
Techeetah 10 1'10.425 1.842 21
Tom Blomqvist
NIO Formula E Team 14 1'10.640 2.057 22
Jake Dennis
Andretti Autosport 12 1'10.743 2.160 23
Nico Müller
DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT 8 1'11.111 2.528 24 Nick Cassidy
Virgin Racing 12 1'11.174 2.591 View full results
We want your opinion!
What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?
Take our 5 minute survey.
- The Motorsport.com Team
Read and post comments
Read also :
Share Or Save This Story
Copy link
Share on Viber
Previous article Dragon expecting to benefit from old FE powertrain
Next article Diriyah E-Prix: De Vries takes dominant pole for Mercedes
Top Comments
There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?
View More & Comment
More from
Rachit Thukral
Raul Fernandez still compromised after Indonesia finger injury: “I’m not at 100%”
MotoGP
MotoGP
Australian GP
15 h
Raul Fernandez still compromised after Indonesia finger injury: “I’m not at 100%”
Dan Ticktum secures Formula E Gen4 berth with newly-acquired Fortescue Zero team
Formula E
Formula E 18 h
Dan Ticktum secures Formula E Gen4 berth with newly-acquired Fortescue Zero team
Latest news
Max Verstappen slams “unacceptable” bumps at Austin F1 track: “It's out of control”
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
6 h
Max Verstappen slams “unacceptable” bumps at Austin F1 track: “It's out of control”
Kimi Antonelli ready to "finish the job" as first F1 title chance beckons at US GP
Formula 1
F1 Formula 1
United States GP
7 h
Kimi Antonelli ready to "finish the job" as first F1 title chance beckons at US GP
How to watch NASCAR at Talladega II: Weekend schedule, start time, entry list, TV
NASCAR Cup
NAS NASCAR Cup
Talladega II
7 h
How to watch NASCAR at Talladega II: Weekend schedule, start time, entry list, TV
Peterson Racing addresses online abuse after parting ways with Austin Green
NASCAR O'Reilly
NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly
Talladega II
7 h
Peterson Racing addresses online abuse after parting ways with Austin Green
Feature
Discover prime content
Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
You have 2 options:
- Become a subscriber.
- Disable your adblocker.
Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here
Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page
Manage Alerts
Subscribe