Sebastien Buemi topped the first session of the 2017-18 Formula E championship.
The Renault e.dams driver put in a quick lap in the final minute of the session to go top with a 1m03.310s lap around the Hong Kong street circuit. It put him half a second ahead of Jaguar’s Mitch Evans, who claimed second.
Buemi’s team-mate Nico Prost was the first man of the year to bring out the yellow flags after he ran wide at turn one. There was no damage to his e.dams and he was able to continue. He briefly slotted into the top spot but was pushed down to sixth, 0.819s slower than Buemi.
Formula E newcomer Neel Jani wasn’t as lucky. The Dragon Racing driver oversteered at turn 10 and clipped the wall, damaging the front right suspension. He managed to limp back to the pits but the incident limited his running and he finished slowest.
Almost in the exact same place, Andre Lotterer did the exact same thing in the closing stages of the session. He too was able to continue, finishing 17th quickest while his Techeetah team-mate Jean Eric Vergne managed to P9.
The only on track stoppage was Felix Rosenqvist. He had topped the times early in the session but dropped down the order as others improved. In the second half of the session, the Mahindra driver was on a flying lap, with personal bests in the first two sectors, before coming to a stop on track just before the timing line. He’d been running slowly when he let another car past, then pulled to a stop. The incident brought out the full course yellows and he sat out for the remainder of the session, finishing 12th quickest.
Behind Buemi and Evans, the Audi drivers finished third and fourth. Daniel Abt beat reigning champion Lucas Di Gassi by a tenth of a second.
Sam Bird took P5, ahead of Prost, Nelson Piquet, and Edoardo Mortara, who was running at the top of the order in the first half of the session.
Oliver Turvey rounded out the top 10.
