London E-Prix: Gunther leads BMW Andretti 1-2 in FP2

New York City race one victor Gunther pipped his teammate Dennis to the top of the times, with Gunther’s 1m26.838s lap ensuring he was the only driver to dip under the 1m27s barrier.

Only Oliver Turvey had failed to lap within a tenth of free practice one pacesetter Jean-Eric Vergne’s Friday benchmark, but on Saturday morning the field was hugely spread out.

Valencia race-two winner Dennis was some 0.375s adrift of his stablemate’s best effort, despite using four 35kW attack mode boosts to Gunther’s one in a bid to close the gap.

It was then left to Porsche driver Andre Lotterer to complete the top three, after he ran provisionally fastest but was bumped back in the final minute to fall 0.629s in arrears.

The forecasted rain duly arrived in time for the session, with drivers frequently aquaplaning on the lesser-used perimeter circuit roads that make up the outside portion of the circuit.

Three minutes into the half-hour run, Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne was caught out by the standing water and shunted into the wall on the approach to the Turn 10 right-handed hairpin.

He ripped the front wing assembly off his car and skated in to the run-off, where he could not revive the car to return to the pitlane for repairs. That meant he failed to set a time and was forced to watch the remainder of the session from the wall.

Envision Virgin Racing driver Robin Frijns was another to be caught out, with the Dutch racer crumpling the nose of his car when he skated sideways down the track at Turn 6.

Frijns had been managing oversteer through the preceding corners, but then lost the rear as the track sloped downhill and skidded parallel to the concrete wall before eventually making contact.

He was able to rejoin from the run-off after a minor brush with the TecPro barrier, eventually running to only the 22nd fastest time.

Sergio Sette Camara soon followed suit down at Turn 6, losing the rear and sliding into the run-off area that had only just been vacated by Frijns.

The Dragon Penske Autosport driver would, however, post the fifth quickest time behind Mahindra Racing driver Alex Lynn.

The second Mercedes of Nyck de Vries ran to sixth place ahead of Rene Rast and the two Nissan e.dams, with Sebastien Buemi eclipsing his teammate Oliver Rowland.

Edoardo Mortara rounded out the top 10 for Venturi, while Mitch Evans led points leader and Jaguar Racing teammate Sam Bird in 11th place.

The DS Techeetahs would wind up two seconds off the pace, reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa clocking 18th as teammate Jean-Eric Vergne was 19th.

Lucas di Grassi was also forced to abandon the session early when he made a rare mistake aboard his Audi machine at Turn 9, hitting the inside wall and damaging his suspension.

Practice results:

Cla	#	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	28	Maximilian Gunther	Andretti Autosport	1'26.838
2	27	Jake Dennis	Andretti Autosport	1'27.213	0.375
3	36	Andre Lotterer	Porsche Team	1'27.467	0.629
4	94	Alex Lynn	Mahindra Racing	1'27.499	0.661
5	7	Sergio Sette Camara	Dragon Racing	1'27.508	0.670
6	17	Nyck de Vries	Mercedes	1'27.781	0.943
7	33	René Rast	Team Abt	1'27.782	0.944
8	23	Sébastien Buemi	DAMS	1'27.792	0.954
9	22	Oliver Rowland	DAMS	1'27.795	0.957
10	48	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	1'27.932	1.094
11	20	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	1'27.959	1.121
12	10	Sam Bird	Jaguar Racing	1'28.103	1.265
13	99	Pascal Wehrlein	Porsche Team	1'28.262	1.424
14	29	Alexander Sims	Mahindra Racing	1'28.324	1.486
15	88	Tom Blomqvist	NIO Formula E Team	1'28.451	1.613
16	71	Norman Nato	Venturi	1'28.740	1.902
17	8	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	1'28.898	2.060
18	13	Antonio Felix da Costa	Techeetah	1'28.902	2.064
19	25	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	1'28.985	2.147
20	6	Joel Eriksson	Dragon Racing	1'29.256	2.418
21	37	Nick Cassidy	Virgin Racing	1'29.330	2.492
22	4	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	1'29.370	2.532
23	11	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	1'29.689	2.851
24	5	Stoffel Vandoorne	Mercedes	no time