Lucas Di Grassi led the way in the first practice session in Hong Kong beating Sebastien Buemi by two-tenths of a second.
All the drivers peeled out of the pitlane when the session went green to start the third season of the Formula E Championship.
However, it only took four minutes until the red flag came out, as Oliver Turvey stopped out on track. The British driver was able to get the car running again and made it back to the pits.
Buemi led the way in the early part of the session with his teammate Nicolas Prost right behind him in second.
Oliver Turvey’s NEXTEV came to a halt again after 15 minutes of the session, but again the 29-year old was able to get his car moving and drove back to the pits.
The lap times started to tumble very quickly as the track cleaned up throughout the session. Robin Frijns briefly topped the timesheets with 30 minutes remaining in the session, but he was quickly displaced by Di Grassi.
Felix Rosenqvist rose to the top of the timing screens with 20 minutes remaining. The young Swedish driver pushed hard on his flying lap and went three-tenths quicker than Di Grassi.
Frijns caused the second red flag of the session after he spun at turn nine and caused a road block. Frijns managed to point his car in the right direction and made it back to the pits.
Once the session resumed, Jean-Eric Vergne started setting purple sector times and went fastest in his Techeetah, three-tenths clear of Prost and Buemi.
Di Grassi then smashed Vergne’s time with ten minutes left in the session, as the Brazilian driver set a 1:02:351 to go 1.1 seconds faster than Vergne.
With five minutes remaining in the session, the drivers had to do a full course yellow practice before they completed their final runs.
However, Ma Qing Hua hit the wall at turn four but was lucky to get away with no damage, while Rosenqvist found one of the few runoff areas on the track at turn five.
That meant no one could beat Di Grassi’s time, as Sebastien Buemi could only manage second fastest on his last flying lap of the session.
[responsivevoice_button]
