Lucas di Grassi set the pace in the opening practice session of the Monaco E-Prix weekend, posting the fastest time in the 45-minute session for Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler.
The Season 3 champion set a best time of a 50.183s around 1.765km-long circuit, edging Envision Virgin Racing's Sam Bird who trailed the Brazilian by 0.072s in second place.
Mitch Evans, who made a mistake in Turn 1 at the mid-point of the session, completed the top three for Panasonic Jaguar Racing, 0.109s off the pace while BMW i Andretti Motorsport's Alexander Sims was fourth, 0.038s slower than Evans' best time.
Double Monaco E-Prix winner Sebastien Buemi acted as the filling in a BMW sandwich by completing the top five, with Antonio Felix da Costa securing sixth in FP1, briefly holding the fastest lap in the session before ending up 0.266 off the pace.
Formula E's most recent winner in Robin Frijns followed da Costa in seventh in the second Envision Virgin car while Andre Lotterer was the highest placed DS Techeetah driver in eighth, with team-mate and reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne missing out on the top 10 in 11th.
Oliver Rowland and Stoffel Vandoorne split the two DS Techeetah drivers in ninth and 10th, the prior 0.385s off the pace in the second Nissan e.dams car while the latter was an additional 0.070s down in the lead HWA Racelab.
Outside of the top 10 it was a low-key session for Mahindra Racing, with former championship leader Jerome d'Ambrosio ending the session in 12th while Pascal Wehrlein was 16th.
Similarly, home squad Venturi also experienced a quiet session, with Edoardo Mortara only managing 14th in FP1 after previously having the second-fastest time in the session while Felipe Massa was 21st in the penultimate position, only ahead NIO's Oliver Turvey who had limited running in the first practice session.






Discussion about this post