Sam Bird topped the timesheets in the first practice session of the Santiago E-Prix race weekend for Envision Virgin Racing.
The Briton, who emerged as the victor of Formula E’s season-opener in Diriyah, lapped the Parque O’Higgins Circuit in 1m 04.914s in what was a 45-minute session of constant evolution.
On the revised circuit – which sees changes to the first and third sector and the removal of three corners from the second – DS Techeetah’s Antonio Felix da Costa emerged as Bird’s nearest challenger, 0.150s adrift of the benchmark time.
ROKiT Venturi Racing driver Edoardo Mortara was a further 0.032s down on da Costa, occupying third at the close of the session while Lucas di Grassi was fourth-fastest for Audi.
A 1m 05.252s run from Nico Muller allowed GEOX Dragon to complete the top five – the Swiss rookie demonstrating positive pace ahead of his third E-Prix start.
Jerome d’Ambrosio briefly held the fastest time of FP1 for Mahindra Racing, however, slipped back to sixth at the close of the session, heading team-mate Wehrlein who was ninth for the Indian marque.
Current championship leader Alexander Sims and Nissan e.dams’ Sebastien Buemi separated the Mahindra pairing in P7 and P8. Andre Lotterer completed the top 10 for Porsche.
Outside of the top 10, James Calado emerged as the quickest Jaguar driver in 11th while Stoffel Vandoorne was 12th as the quickest Mercedes pilot.
NIO 333’s Ma Qinghua completed the pack, with 2.123s covering the field of 24 drivers.
