Advantage di Grassi after first practice
Sebastien Buemi’s championship rival Lucas di Grassi ended the session at the summit of the timing sheets after the Swiss driver was left frustrated with his car following his 200kw lap.
With the title showdown set to be between one each of their drivers, both Renault e.dams and both ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport drivers headed out on track so close together early on you could throw a blanket over the four of them. However, it was – rather surprisingly – the Andretti’s of Robin Frijns and Antonio Felix da Costa on top after the first third of the session.
As teams settled into their respective programs and times began to tumble, DS Virgin’s Sam Bird led the way, with Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne second, ABT’s Daniel Abt third, Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist in fourth, Renault e.dams’ Nico Prost in fifth, whilst championship contenders Lucas Di Grassi and Sebastien Buemi were sixth and seventh respectively.
Early pace setter Robin Frijns was having an eventful time out on track in his Andretti, locking up or spinning at any part of the track he possibly could as he tumbled down to tenth on the timing sheets. Admittedly, that was better than his team-mate at the time, who had fallen all the way down to nineteenth.
Into the final ten minutes of the session, and championship leader Sebastien Buemi was the first driver to put in a 200kw lap to go to the summit of the timing sheets by two-tenths, but the lap left the Swiss driver frustrated.
Out of all the drivers to set 200kw laps in the closing stages, di Grassi finished the session on top with a 1m22.451, ahead of Bird, Vergne, Buemi and Prost, while Mitch Evans continued to impress in the Jaguar in sixth.