Sebastien Buemi topped final practice ahead of qualifying for the Sanya E-Prix in what was a closely grouped session, with less than four-tenths covering the top 10 runners.
While the Nissan e.dams driver set the fastest time of the 30-minute session, lapping the 2.236km-long circuit in 1m 07.288s, it was a far from clean practice for the Season Two champion, with Buemi crashing his IM01 car in Turn 3 after suffering from changing balance.
Antonio Felix da Costa, who held the fastest time for most of FP2, emerged as Buemi's nearest challenger, with the Portuguese driver trailing the Swiss racer by 0.109s for BMW i Andretti Motorsport while Oliver Rowland, who set the pace in first practice, was third fastest in the second Nissan, 0.165s slower than his team-mate.
Jerome d'Ambrosio was fourth for Mahindra Racing, 0.168s adrift of Buemi while the Belgian's team-mate, Pascal Wehrlein, propped up the timesheets in 22nd after swiping the barriers on the exit of Turn 6, with this mistake ending the German driver's session early.
After suffering from balance problems in FP1, Jean-Eric Vergne completed the top five for DS Techeetah while Hong Kong race winner Edoardo Mortara was sixth fastest for Venturi.
Mitch Evans followed Mortara in seventh for Jaguar Racing, with the Kiwi continuing to show consistent pace while Lucas di Grassi was the fastest Audi driver, setting the eighth fastest time.
Felipe Nasr fronted a GEOX Dragon 9-10, with the Brazilian rookie trailing Buemi by 0.359s while Jose Maria Lopez was a further 0.010s adrift of his team-mate.
Outside of the top 10, Championship leader Sam Bird was the lead Envision Virgin Racing driver in 11th fastest with team-mate Robin Frijns ending practice in 16th while Andre Lotterer was 14th in the second DS Techeetah car.
