Di Grassi heads Formula E testing

Lucas di Grassi set the pace for the Audi-backed Abt team on the second day of Formula E testing at Donington Park on Friday.

The ex-Formula 1 racer just edged his sports car rival Sebastien Buemi – fastest on day one – with a 1m31.973s.

Buemi's e.dams entry was just one tenth of a second back, while a sweep of the top five by ex-F1 drivers was completed by Nick Heidfeld, Scott Speed and Bruno Senna.

Friday's times ended up being much faster than the laps set on Thursday after a temporary chicane on the exit of the Old Hairpin was removed. Several drivers, including Jarno Trulli, Karun Chandhok and Antonio Garcia, made contact with the tyre barriers that formed the chicane, and the laptimes at the front improved by nearly four seconds following the change.

"It was my first time driving the car with full power and I'm really pleased with the performance," said Di Grassi, who was driving two cars in the absence of his GP2-competing teammate Daniel Abt. "With Daniel at Silverstone I had the use of two cars so was able to do a lot of work in race mode. We had very little problems and I'm looking forward to getting in the car next week."

With 16 of the 19 cars lapping within five seconds of each other, the rear of the field was brought up by Dragon Racing's Oriol Servia and Mike Conway, who were both more than 10 seconds off the pace.

Jerome d'Ambrosio set the pace in the morning running, but he slipped to ninth by the end of the day. Jamie Alguersuari, who was 16th fastest, lost some track time after damaging a pullrod by going off at a fast corner.

With DTM racer Antonio Felix da Costa leaving the test to join up with Red Bull's F1 team at the British Grand Prix, his Aguri seat was taken by reigning GP2 champion Fabio Leimer.