Practice report

Formula E Mexico City ePrix

Mexico City ePrix: Buemi tops FP1 by half a second

Sebastien Buemi went straight from the airport to P1 in the first practice session of the Mexico City ePrix at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez.

Sam Smith

Edited: Apr 1, 2017, 6:01 PM

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Sébastien Buemi, Renault e.Dams celerates with Alain Prost

Loic Duval, Dragon Racing

Nick Heidfeld, Mahindra Racing

Robin Frijns, Amlin Andretti Formula E Team

Esteban Gutiérrez, Techeetah

Sam Bird, DS Virgin Racing

Jean-Eric Vergne, Techeetah

Oliver Turvey, NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team

The Renault e.dams driver claimed the top spot with a time of 1m02.222s at full 200Kw power despite being held up by Fprmula E debutant Esteban Gutierrez.

Buemi, who is chasing a fourth consecutive Formula E victory after completing a 16-hour commute from Monza to Mexico City overnight, headed Faraday Future Dragon teammates Loic Duval and Jerome d’Ambrosio by just over half a second on a remarkably dusty circuit.

Jean-Eric Vergne ended the first session in fourth position as the fastest of the 170Kw drivers. However, the Frenchman was placed under investigation for allegedly cutting the final chicane with his Renault-powered car.

The Techeetah driver, along with new teammate Gutierrez, was handed a three-place suspended grid penalty after exceeding the power allowance in Friday’s shakedown session.

Gutierrez ended the session in 19th position, as he continued to adapt to the all-electric formula.

Robin Frijns hustled his Andretti ATEC-02 to fifth place on a 200Kw lap, the Dutchman heading Sam Bird (DS Virgin), Stephane Sarrazin (Venturi), and the Abt Audi duo of Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt.

Mitch Evans, who was the first driver to try a 200kW qualifying simulation lap, rounded out the top 10.

While the Jaguar driver set the quickest sector one, a scrappy second and third sector saw him claim an initial third position. This eventually became 10th by the time the session ended.

Receiving grid penalties for Saturday’s race are both Venturi drivers Maro Engel and Sarrazin.

The pair will drop 10 places on the grid for gearbox changes after the team had already played their technical jokers earlier in the season.

Engel suffered misfortune with another stoppage in one of his Venturi VM200-FE-02. The German was left temporarily stranded on the circuit, causing a brief Full Course Yellow.

Many cars endured spins during the session including Felix Rosenqvist (Mahindra), Frijns (Andretti) and Nelson Piquet (NextEV).

FP1 results

DriverTeamLapsTimeGap 1 switzerland Sebastien Buemi Renault e.dams 29 1'02.222 2 france Loic Duval Dragon Racing 27 1'02.727 0.505 3 belgium Jerome d'Ambrosio Dragon Racing 22 1'02.923 0.701 4 france Jean-Eric Vergne Techeetah 29 1'03.224 1.002 5 netherlands Robin Frijns Andretti Autosport 29 1'03.319 1.097 6 united_kingdom Sam Bird DS Virgin Racing 26 1'03.405 1.183 7 france Stephane Sarrazin Venturi 29 1'03.421 1.199 8 brazil Lucas Di Grassi Audi Sport Team Abt 32 1'03.462 1.240 9 germany Daniel Abt Audi Sport Team Abt 32 1'03.578 1.356 10 new_zealand Mitch Evans Jaguar Racing 28 1'03.621 1.399 11 sweden Felix Rosenqvist Mahindra Racing 29 1'03.706 1.484 12 france Nicolas Prost Renault e.dams 27 1'03.761 1.539 13 argentina Jose Maria Lopez DS Virgin Racing 27 1'03.807 1.585 14 germany Nick Heidfeld Mahindra Racing 29 1'03.841 1.619 15 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr NextEV NIO 33 1'03.934 1.712 16 united_kingdom Oliver Turvey NextEV NIO 33 1'04.052 1.830 17 portugal António Felix da Costa Andretti Autosport 32 1'04.117 1.895 18 germany Maro Engel Venturi 27 1'04.330 2.108 19 Esteban Gutierrez Techeetah 34 1'04.335 2.113 20 Adam Carroll Jaguar Racing 26 1'04.700 2.478

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