Evans leads opening London E-Prix practice

Mitch Evans was the first of Formula E's title contenders to show his hand by topping the opening practice session of the London E-Prix.

The Jaguar TCS Racing's best time, coming on his 21st and final lap of the 40-minute session, was a 1m08.175, 0.183s quicker than Nyck de Vries, who was top until the final minute of the session when Evans went quicker. The Mahindra driver also completed the most laps in the session with 26.

Pascal Wehrlein – who enters the weekend third in the standings behind Jake Dennis and Evans but only five points off the top spot – was third for Porsche, ahead of DS Penske's Taylor Barnard and Dennis. The latter was an early pacesetter but nearly ended up in the wall after carrying too much speed into the Attack Mode activation zone. Dennis was able to slow the car just enough though and carried on.

Antonio Felix da Costa was sixth for Jaguar, ahead of Mahindra’s Edoardo Mortara, with Nico Mueller of Porsche, Sebastien Buemi – who will step away from his race seat with Envision Racing after this weekend – and Citroen’s Nick Cassidy making up the rest of the top 10.

Oliver Rowland just missed out on the top 10 by 0.054s, but cleared his Nissan teammate Norman Nato by 0.101s. Felipe Drugovich was 13th quickest for Andretti, ahead of Joel Eriksson for Envision and Cupra Kiro's Dan Ticktum who completed just nine laps, having slowed early on with an issue with the front right of his car. After pitting he was able to rejoin and get times on the board in the second half of the session, but the problem cost him track time.

Lucas di Grassi began his final race weekend by going 16th for Lola Yamaha Abt, ahead of Maximilian Guenther in the other DS Penske, with Lola's Zane Maloney, Kiro's Pepe Marti, and Jean-Eric Vergne in the second Citroen rounding out the runners.

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