Malcolm Griffiths/Motorsport Images
Evans leads the way as Formula E testing concludes
Mitch Evans moved to the fore as Formula E's official pre-season testing concluded in Spain. The Jaguar TCS Racing driver, who lapped Circuito del Jarama in 1m27.461s as times continued to fall, set his best time late in Friday morning's three-hour session and was 0.141s quicker than Kiro Race Co.'s Dan Ticktum. The latter completed an impressive pre-season campaign for the team, with David Beckmann going fifth quickest in the sister car.
Between them were TAG Heuer Porsche's Pascal Wehrlein and NEOM McLaren's Taylor Barnard. Oliver Rowland was sixth as the last of the drivers under 1m28s on Friday morning, ahead of Maserati MSG’s Stoffel Vandoorne and Zane Maloney, who returned to the track after being sidelined on Thursday afternoon due to an issue with his Lola Yamaha Abt's data recorder.
Maloney had gone quickest after 40 minutes, taking top spot off Antonio Felix da Costa who ended the session ninth, with Norman Nato completing the top 10 to ensure both Nissans -- and three of the four cars powered by the Japanese brand -- finished Friday in the top half of the times.
Nick Cassidy was 11th quickest in the second factory Jaguar, ahead of DS Penske’s Maximilian Guenther, Andretti’s Jake Dennis and Sam Bird in the other McLaren. Sebastien Buemi of Envision Racing and Lola Yamaha Abt driver Lucas di Grassi were 15th and 16th respectively, with Robin Frijns 17th in the other Envision and Nico Mueller 18th.
Jean-Eric Vergne in the second DS Penske, Maserati’s Jake Hughes, and the Mahindras of Edoardo Mortana and Nyck de Vries rounded out the field.
All 22 drivers completed their best times on full power, although -- as has been the case all week -- with teams working on varied programs, the true competitive picture remains unclear.
Evans' table-topping time from Friday morning was the fastest overall time from pre-season testing, with Ticktum and Wehrlein's Friday bests also putting them in the top three overall for the week.
Beckmann's session-best from Thursday morning put him fourth on the week-long chart, ahead of Barnard's Friday time, while da Costa's best from the cooler Thursday morning run put him sixth overall.
Rowland and Vandoorne made it to seventh and eighth in the overall ranking with their times from the final session, with de Vries and Maximilian Guenther ninth and 10th with their Thursday afternoon and Thursday morning times respectively.
The best times came almost exclusively from the week’s final three sessions across Thursday and Friday, except for Andretti driver Mueller, who ended the week as the 22nd-fastest driver with his lap from Wednesday afternoon.
While official pre-season testing has now concluded, there will be one final three-hour session on Friday afternoon for a field of 18 female drivers.
In a change to the previously announced driver lineup, Sophia Floersch will not be driving for Nissan, that team instead fielding a single car for Abbi Pulling. The late change to the pre-season schedule, which involved a move from Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia and a delay of one day -- moving the female driver test from Thursday morning to Friday afternoon -- meant that Floersch had an unavoidable clash with another prior commitment.
Dominik Wilde
Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?
Read Dominik Wilde's articles
Latest News
Comments
Comments are disabled until you accept Social Networking Cookies. Update cookie preferences
If the dialog doesn't appear, ad-blockers are often the cause; try disabling yours or see our Social Features Support.