BMW i Andretti Motorsport's Alexander Sims topped the morning session of the first day of Formula E pre-season testing at the Ricardo Tormo Circuit in Valencia, Spain.
Sims, who will make his debut in the all-electric single seater series this December with the BMW/Andretti squad, lapped the circuit in 1m 17.575s, beating last season's 1m 18.565s benchmark testing time, 0.167s ahead of team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa.
Trailing Sims by 0.172s was Season Four runner-up and former champion Lucas di Grassi, who set the third fastest time for Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler while reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne was fourth fastest, 0.466s adrift of Sims for DS Techeetah, with the formerly independent squad partnering with DS Automobiles for the 2018/19 campaign.
Vergne's team-mate, Andre Lotterer, completed the top five while Daniel Abt was sixth fastest, 0.946s off Sims' pace.
Britain's Sam Bird was the highest placed Virgin Racing driver in seventh, with the team competing as a customer team of Audi for Season Five following its split with DS Automobiles at the end of last season's campaign. Bird's team-mate, Robin Frijns, was 12th.
Panasonic Jaguar Racing's Mitch Evans was eighth fastest and was followed by Nissan e.dams' Sebastien Buemi in ninth while Felipe Massa completed the top 10 for Venturi Formula E.
Edoardo Mortara followed his team-mate in 11th while Tom Dillmann was the lead NIO driver in 13th ahead of his first full season of Formula E with Oliver Turvey setting the 16th fastest time of the session.
Jerome d'Ambrosio, who will drive for Mahindra Racing in Season Five, was 14th while his former Dragon Racing team-mate, Jose Maria Lopez, was 15th in the session, driving the American squad's all-new EV-3 machine.
Pascal Wehrlein was set the 17th fastest time while HWA Racelab's Stoffel Vandoorne was 18th fastest.
Inaugural Formula E champion Nelson Piquet Jr was 19th in the second Jaguar machine while recently crowned DTM champion Gary Paffett was 20th, causing the only red flag of the morning session after crashing his HWA machine in the Ricardo Tormo Circuit's make-shift chicanes, placed on the main straight in order to emulate a typical Formula E circuit.
Maximilian Gunther propped up the timesheets with the slowest time of the session in 21st in the second Dragon machine. He will be handing driving duties over to Ferrari junior Antonio Fuoco for the afternoon session.
Alexander Albon was 22nd after failing to complete a lap due to technical issues.
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