FE: Vergne fastest with customer Renault power

Jean-Eric Vergne topped the first day of the final pre-season test ahead of the 2016/17 Formula E season driving for the Renault-powered Techeetah team.

The Frenchman fell just 0.006s short of his own Donington Park lap record, posting a 1m29.640s.

He looked set to improve again before backing out of the lap, but had he combined his three best sectors he would have posted a 1m29.3s.

"We can tell the car is working really well," said Vergne. "I feel much happier this year than last year."

With the hour-long session before lunch dedicated mainly to teams shaking down their third and fourth cars, after running just two chassis in the opening test, the competitive laptimes came in the afternoon.

Vergne's improvement in the final hour catapulted him clear of DS Virgin's Sam Bird, who was just under three tenths slower than his old teammate.

Renault e.dams driver Nico Prost snuck into the 1m29s to complete the top three.

Jerome d'Ambrosio delivered the Dragon-run Faraday Future team's best showing of testing so far with a 1m30.013s to go fourth quickest, just ahead of 2015/16 champion Sebastien Buemi and Daniel Abt.

Adam Carroll posted Jaguar's best lap time from pre-season testing so far with a 1m30.713s, but the British manufacturer says it is still not chasing performance at the unrepresentative 2.5-mile circuit.

Carroll, who wound up seventh quickest, is joined at the final test by Mitch Evans, who is back with the team for the second time as it looks to finalise its driver lineup for its maiden FE campaign.

They went on to complete 75 laps between them on a day when the teams grew frustrated at the number of red flags.

While some were for on-track stoppages, such as the one caused by Faraday Future's Loic Duval going off at McLeans, several were so marshals could sweep away gravel at the Fogarty Esses.

This was despite efforts to dissuade drivers from cutting across the extended curbs at the chicane, such as putting up plastic bollards.

Venturi suffered the most in terms of mileage, with Stephane Sarrazin and Maro Engel not running in the morning after returning from the Mexico World Endurance Championship round and a Nurburgring VLN race respectively.

They managed just 14 laps apiece in the afternoon.

DAY 1 MORNING RESULTS:

DAY 1 AFTERNOON RESULTS:

Originally on Autosport.com