Jaguar Racing’s Sam Bird set the pace in Free Practice 3 ahead of the eleventh round of Season 8 in New York, beating yesterday’s race winner Nick Cassidy with an unrivalled 1:08.745.
The session was quite the opposite of Saturday’s disrupted race with only a chance of slight rain, as Bird stormed off to the top of the leaderboard in the final minutes. Cassidy was 0.095s shy from the Brit’s time, as ROKiT Venturi’s Lucas Di Grassi rounded out the top three.
Antonio Felix Da Costa got close to placing his Techeetah in third, only 0.007s away from Di Grassi’s time, as he settled in fourth ahead of Andretti’s Jake Dennis and Mitch Evans in fifth fastest for Jaguar.
Robin Frijns ensured that both Envision Racing’s cars completed the session in the top 10 in the seventh fastest, ahead of Porche’s Andre Lotterer and Mahindra’s Oliver Rowland, as Pascal Wehrlein rounded out the top ten in the second Porsche car.
Further down, Dragon’s Sergio Sette Camara ended up in the 11th fastest after leading the session for a short while with less than a tenth of a second away from Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne in 12th.
Stoffel Vandoorne was 13th, ahead of Marrakesh E-Prix winner Edoardo Mortana in 14th for ROKiT Venturi and his teammate Nyck De Vries in 15th.
Nissan’s Sebastian Buemi was 16th fastest, beating Andretti’s Oliver Askew to 17th, and NIO 333’s duo, Dan Ticktum and Oliver Turvey in 18th and 19th, respectively.
Finally, Maximilian Guenther concluded the session in the 20th fastest, still ahead of Dragon’s Antonio Giovinazzi and Mahindra’s Alexander Sims.
The 22-strong grid will be back in action for the final Qualifying session around New York city at 08:40 local times.
