Testing report

Formula E Donington September testing

Vergne ends opening day of second Formula E test on top

Jean-Eric Vergne led the pack on the first day of Formula E's second pre-season test at Donington Park, lapping within 0.006s of the lap record he established in the first test.

Darshan Chokhani

Edited: May 5, 2021, 4:32 PM

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Jean-Eric Vergne, Techeetah

The Techeetah driver was the first man to dip into the 1m29s, clocking the fastest lap of 1m29.640s with around an hour remaining, but just falling short of his 1m29.634s benchmark from last month.

Vergne was followed by DS Virgin's Sam Bird, the best of the drivers who had been travelling back from the WEC 6 Hours of Mexico last weekend, with a best time 0.284s off the pace.

Renault's Nicolas Prost slotted himself in third and was the only other driver to breach the 90-second barrier, 0.330s back from countryman Vergne.

That pushed Dragon's Jerome D'Ambrosio to fourth, with reigning champion Sebastien Buemi completing the top five, just over half a second slower than Vergne.

The Swiss driver missed the morning session entirely, having travelled back from Mexico. Venturi duo Stephane Sarrazin and Maro Engel were also absent for the morning.

Behind, Daniel Abt in the lead Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport car ended sixth, with Jaguar's Adam Carroll recording the team's best testing time yet in seventh. The British marque's new signing Mitch Evans ended the day in 14th.

DS Virgin's Jose Maria Lopez was eighth fastest having topping the one-hour morning session, which began in damp conditinos, fresh from provisionally winning his third WTCC title in Japan.

The top 10 was completed by Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld and Techeetah's Ma Qing Hua.

In all there were nine red flag stoppages during the day, one of which was caused by a crash for Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa.

The second Andretti car of Robin Frijns and Dragon's Loic Duval were also responsible for delays.

Day 1 times (afternoon):

Pos****Driver Team Time Gap 1 Jean-Eric Vergne Techeetah 1'29.640 2 Sam Bird DS-Virgin 1'29.924 0.284 3 Nicolas Prost Renault 1'29.970 0.330 4 Jerome d'Ambrosio Dragon 1'30.013 0.373 5 Sebastien Buemi Renault 1'30.159 0.519 6 Daniel Abt ABT Schaeffler 1'30.200 0.560 7 Adam Carroll Jaguar 1'30.713 1.073 8 Jose Maria Lopez DS-Virgin 1'30.852 1.212 9 Nick Heidfeld Mahindra 1'30.885 1.245 10 Ma Qing Hua Techeetah 1'31.181 1.541 11 Lucas di Grassi ABT Schaeffler 1'31.231 1.591 12 Stephane Sarrazin Venturi 1'31.538 1.898 13 Antonio Felix da Costa Andretti 1'31.559 1.919 14 Mitch Evans Jaguar 1'31.699 2.059 15 Maro Engel Venturi 1'32.371 2.731 16 Nelson Piquet Jr. NEXTEV TCR 1'32.493 2.853 17 Felix Rosenqvist Mahindra 1'32.694 3.054 18 Loic Duval Dragon 1'32.786 3.146 19 Oliver Turvey NEXTEV TCR 1'33.183 3.543 20 Robin Frijns Andretti 1'33.236 3.596

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