By alley - Feb 6, 2016, 10:01 AM ET

FE: Buemi leads practice, Vergne in doubt

Formula E championship leader Sebastien Buemi comfortably set the fastest time in practice for the Buenos Aires ePrix.

The Renault e.dams driver produced a 1m08.771s in the second session to lead his main title rival Lucas di Grassi by 0.539 seconds. Buemi's team-mate Nico Prost was third fastest in practice two, just one-thousandth of a second slower than the Abt Shaeffler FE01 ahead.

Sam Bird gave DS Virgin Racing a boost by topping the opening session and backing up that pace with the fourth best time later on. He shaded Antonio Felix da Costa, who was 0.7s slower than Buemi's benchmark in the season-one specification Team Aguri-run Spark SRT_01E.

Andretti Autosport's Robin Frijns stopped on track approaching Turn 3 in both sessions, while team-mate Simona de Silvestro broke the left-rear of her car by hitting the wall as she exited the pitlane in first practice.

UNCERTAINTY OVER VERGNE

Jean-Eric Vergne's likelihood of participating in the event is unclear after he was diagnosed with food poisoning.

The DS Virgin driver missed opening practice, while the team explored the possibility of replacing him with Citroen's double World Touring Car champion Jose Maria Lopez.

The Argentinian is attending his home Formula E event as a guest of DS, Citroen's sister brand.

Vergne recovered enough to declare he would return for the second session, which ruled out any chance of a shock Lopez debut, but did not complete any laps.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sam Bird	Virgin	Virgin/-	1m09.913ss	1m09.913s	21
2	Daniel Abt	Abt	ABT Schaeffler/-	1m10.302ss	0.389s	21
3	Nelson Piquet Jr.	China	NEXTEV TCR/-	1m10.717ss	0.804s	20
4	Oliver Turvey	China	NEXTEV TCR/-	1m10.752ss	0.839s	21
5	Sebastien Buemi	e.dams	Renault/-	1m10.880ss	0.967s	23
6	Lucas di Grassi	Abt	ABT Schaeffler/-	1m11.152ss	1.239s	22
7	Stephane Sarrazin	Venturi	Venturi/-	1m11.232ss	1.319s	19
8	Nicolas Prost	e.dams	Renault/-	1m11.291ss	1.378s	22
9	Robin Frijns	Andretti	Spark/-	1m11.429ss	1.516s	12
10	Antonio Felix da Costa	Aguri	Spark/-	1m11.690ss	1.777s	20
11	Loic Duval	Dragon	Venturi/-	1m11.948ss	2.035s	18
12	Mike Conway	Venturi	Venturi/-	1m12.209ss	2.296s	22
13	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Dragon	Venturi/-	1m12.209ss	2.296s	22
14	Salvador Duran	Aguri	Spark/-	1m12.343ss	2.430s	21
15	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti	Spark/-	1m12.432ss	2.519s	11
16	Bruno Senna	Mahindra	Mahindra/-	1m12.440ss	2.527s	21
17	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra	Mahindra/-	1m12.578ss	2.665s	15

PRACTICE TWO TIMES:

Pos	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Sebastien Buemi	e.dams	Renault/-	1m08.771ss	1m08.771s	19
2	Lucas di Grassi	Abt	ABT Schaeffler/-	1m09.310ss	0.539s	11
3	Nicolas Prost	e.dams	Renault/-	1m09.311ss	0.540s	22
4	Sam Bird	Virgin	Virgin/-	1m09.485ss	0.714s	16
5	Antonio Felix da Costa	Aguri	Spark/-	1m09.490ss	0.719s	11
6	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Dragon	Venturi/-	1m09.695ss	0.924s	15
7	Stephane Sarrazin	Venturi	Venturi/-	1m09.795ss	1.024s	14
8	Nelson Piquet Jr.	China	NEXTEV TCR/-	1m10.089ss	1.318s	19
9	Mike Conway	Venturi	Venturi/-	1m10.262ss	1.491s	21
10	Loic Duval	Dragon	Venturi/-	1m10.301ss	1.530s	16
11	Robin Frijns	Andretti	Spark/-	1m10.303ss	1.532s	5
12	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra	Mahindra/-	1m10.490ss	1.719s	13
13	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti	Spark/-	1m10.527ss	1.756s	6
14	Oliver Turvey	China	NEXTEV TCR/-	1m10.556ss	1.785s	22
15	Daniel Abt	Abt	ABT Schaeffler/-	1m10.594ss	1.823s	14
16	Salvador Duran	Aguri	Spark/-	1m10.595ss	1.824s	12
17	Bruno Senna	Mahindra	Mahindra/-	1m10.710ss	1.939s	18