Practice report
Formula E Hong Kong ePrix
Hong Kong ePrix: Vergne tops interrupted final practice
Jean-Eric Vergne continued to impress in the new Techeetah team after setting the fastest lap of 1m02.350s in the final practice in Hong Kong.
Sam Smith
Edited: May 5, 2021, 4:31 PM
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The Frenchman, who is also a partner of the Chinese funded team, was 0.2 seconds ahead of Nicolas Prost in the #8 Renault eDAMS
Sam Bird’s DS Virgin set the early pace on a 1m02.724s, but the times soon tumbled and the Englishman placed third ahead of Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist and Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa.
As we saw in the first practice, there were plenty of incidents with Maro Engel (Venturi), Jose Maria Lopez (DS Virgin) and reigning champion Sebastien Buemi all having trips down various escape roads.
Buemi thus finished the session in seventh position, just behind Nick Heidfeld’s Mahindra M3 Electro.
However, it was Loic Duval in his Faraday Future Dragon Racing entry which brought out the first red flag when he tagged the wall at the final turn deranging both the front left and rear left of one of his Penske cars. Duval’s incident shortened the session by just under ten minutes.
There was further drama when the green flags flew when Lucas di Grassi crashed, wiping off his rear wing while trying to spin turn his ABT Schaeffler after going down the escape road at tricky second corner. The Brazilian, who had just set a purple sector one time, placed 11th at the end of the session.
Just after di Grassi’s incident Lopez also nudged the wall, at Turn 8 in his DS Virgin entry, also losing his rear wing. Both pitted immediately for repairs. Remarkably the session continued with Lopez’s rear wing just off the racing line.
Adding to the debris on the track Nelson Piquet Jr. also suffered an off at turn eight damaging the front of his NEXTEV entry and bringing out a second red flag which conclude the session.
There was a slight improvement for the Panasonic Jaguar Racing team with Adam Carroll placing 17th and Mitch Evans 19th.
FP2 results:
PosDriverTeamLapsTimeGap 1 
Jean-Eric Vergne 
Techeetah 16 1'02.350 2 Nicolas Prost DAMS 18 1'02.611 0.261 3 
Sam Bird Virgin Racing 15 1'02.724 0.374 4 
Felix Rosenqvist 
Mahindra Racing 13 1'02.825 0.475 5 
Antonio Felix da Costa 
Andretti Autosport 17 1'02.957 0.607 6 
Nick Heidfeld Mahindra Racing 13 1'03.044 0.694 7 
Sébastien Buemi DAMS 15 1'03.082 0.732 8 Ma Qing Hua Techeetah 17 1'03.159 0.809 9 Stéphane Sarrazin 
Venturi 14 1'03.230 0.880 10 Loic Duval Dragon Racing 9 1'03.231 0.881 11 
Lucas di Grassi Team Abt 18 1'03.458 1.108 12 Oliver Turvey NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team 21 1'03.466 1.116 13 Daniel Abt Team Abt 18 1'03.609 1.259 14 
Robin Frijns Andretti Autosport 17 1'03.644 1.294 15 Nelson Piquet Jr. NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team 18 1'03.676 1.326 16 
Jérôme d'Ambrosio Dragon Racing 17 1'03.831 1.481 17 Adam Carroll Panasonic Jaguar Racing 17 1'04.020 1.670 18 Maro Engel Venturi 18 1'04.097 1.747 19 
Mitch Evans Panasonic Jaguar Racing 16 1'04.336 1.986 20 
Jose Maria Lopez Virgin Racing 14 1'05.056 2.706
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