DS Penske’s Barnard leads opening Berlin E-Prix practice

Taylor Barnard was quickest in the opening practice session for the Berlin E-Prix, beating Pascal Wehrlein to the top spot in the 40-minute session at Tempelhof Airport. The DS Penske driver’s table-topping time of 57.470s came with just over six minutes to go, after struggles earlier in the session.

Barnard battled technical issues following a Pit Boost practice which necessitated a full reset of his car and kept him off track for several minutes, and the drama continued after his fastest lap too when he was involved in a near-miss with Lucas di Grassi – the Lola Yamaha Abt driver was on a fast lap while Barnard was slow and in the middle of the track, having not been informed by his team that di Grassi was approaching rapidly. Barnard moved to the right at the last moment but di Grassi did too, although neither made contact.

The stewards subsequently issued Barnard a reprimand over the incident, after determining that the move was potentially dangerous and constituted impeding. It's Barnard's first reprimand of the season.

Wehrlein – driving a Porsche adorned in the famous "Pink Pig" livery that debuted on the Porsche 917/20 at Le Mans in 1971 and won the French Classic in the GTE class in 2018 – ended the session 0.161s adrift of Barnard. He battled brake struggles in the first part of the session, before going to the top with 14 minutes to go.

Jean-Eric Vergne and Maximilian Guenther of Citroen and DS Penske ensured three of the four Stellantis cars ended the day in the top 15 in third and fourth, with early session pacesetter Edoardo Mortara winding up fifth, 0.012s ahead of his Mahindra teammate Nyck de Vries.

Dan Ticktum, who had a spell at the top of the timesheets in the first 10 minutes of the session was seventh quickest for Cupra Kiro, ahead of Envision Racing's Sebastien Buemi and the Andretti pair of Felipe Drugovich and Jake Dennis. Dennis was another to go fastest early on, but struggled to crack the top positions in the second half of the session. He nevertheless completed the most laps with 25. The top 10 was covered by just 0.377s.

Nico Mueller was 11th in the second works Porsche, ahead of reigning champion Oliver Rowland, Joel Eriksson, and the Jaguar pairing of Mitch Evans and Antonio Felix da Costa, a disappointing early showing for the team which swept both Berlin races last season.

Nick Cassidy was a lowly 16th for Citroen, with him struggling with car setup, saying it "destroyed my tires" over the radio. He clocked the lowest lap count of anyone with 18. At the bottom of the times, Pepe Marti was sandwiched by the two Lolas in 19th. All 20 drivers were covered by 0.899s.

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