Monaco E-Prix: Rowland leads DS Techeetah pair in practice

Rowland, who won the 2017 Formula 2 feature race on his last competitive outing in Monaco, set a best time of 49.847s in the 30-minute FP2 session.

He ended up 0.123s clear of reigning champion and DS Techeetah driver Jean-Eric Vergne.

The 45-minute FP1 session – which was topped by Audi’s Lucas di Grassi – took place in sunny early morning conditions, before clouds gathered over Monaco ahead of second practice.

Andre Lotterer and Rowland enjoyed short spells at the top early in FP2 before Vergne moved in front and stayed in first place for the majority of the session.

The FP2 times remained slower than in first practice until the dying minutes of the second session, with BMW Andretti’s Antonio Felix da Costa opening a flurry of fast full power laps that eventually brought the quickest times of the day so far.

After da Costa, Felipe Massa and Alexander Sims went quickest, di Grassi moved to the head of the FP2 times with a 50.051s before he was edged out by Jaguar’s Alex Lynn.

Vergne then briefly retook the top spot before Rowland established himself as the practice pacesetter with two minutes of FP2 remaining.

Lotterer ended up third ahead of Lynn and di Grassi, who spun to the inside of Ste Devote as he prepared for his final flying lap.

Pascal Wehrlein finished sixth in the FP2 for Mahindra Racing to demote Sims and Massa to seventh and eighth.

Daniel Abt and Sam Bird rounded out the top 10 for Audi and Envision Virgin Racing.

Da Costa ended up being shuffled down to 12th.

Dragon Racing driver Maximilian Gunther picked up a 10-place grid penalty for the Monaco race after FP1, as he was found to have been speeding during a full course yellow in the opening session.

That infraction earned him a third reprimand of the season and triggered the 10-place grid penalty.

Rowland’s Nissan teammate Sebastien Buemi had two trips down the Turn 3 escape road – which runs the opposite way up the Monaco track’s traditional downhill tunnel exit when the full Formula 1 configuration is in use – during FP2.

Buemi, who won both of FE’s first two races in Monaco, wound up 21st in FP2 – 1.329s slower than Rowland.

First practice results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	50.183
2	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	50.255	0.072
3	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	50.292	0.109
4	Alexander Sims	Andretti Autosport	50.330	0.147
5	Sébastien Buemi	Nissan e.dams	50.347	0.164
6	Antonio Felix da Costa	Andretti Autosport	50.449	0.266
7	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	50.452	0.269
8	Andre Lotterer	Techeetah	50.490	0.307
9	Oliver Rowland	Nissan e.dams	50.568	0.385
10	Stoffel Vandoorne	HWA AG	50.638	0.455
11	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	50.721	0.538
12	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Mahindra Racing	50.730	0.547
13	Jose Maria Lopez	Dragon Racing	50.875	0.692
14	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	50.884	0.701
15	Tom Dillmann	NIO Formula E Team	50.920	0.737
16	Pascal Wehrlein	Mahindra Racing	50.931	0.748
17	Daniel Abt	Team Abt	51.069	0.886
18	Alex Lynn	Jaguar Racing	51.090	0.907
19	Maximilian Gunther	Dragon Racing	51.393	1.210
20	Gary Paffett	HWA AG	51.399	1.216
21	Felipe Massa	Venturi	51.530	1.347
22	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	53.829	3.646
View full results

Second practice results:

Cla	Driver	Team	Time	Gap
1	Oliver Rowland	Nissan e.dams	49.847
2	Jean-Eric Vergne	Techeetah	49.970	0.123
3	Andre Lotterer	Techeetah	49.981	0.134
4	Alex Lynn	Jaguar Racing	50.042	0.195
5	Lucas di Grassi	Team Abt	50.051	0.204
6	Pascal Wehrlein	Mahindra Racing	50.130	0.283
7	Alexander Sims	Andretti Autosport	50.199	0.352
8	Felipe Massa	Venturi	50.232	0.385
9	Daniel Abt	Team Abt	50.263	0.416
10	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing	50.266	0.419
11	Jérôme d'Ambrosio	Mahindra Racing	50.321	0.474
12	Antonio Felix da Costa	Andretti Autosport	50.403	0.556
13	Stoffel Vandoorne	HWA AG	50.418	0.571
14	Edoardo Mortara	Venturi	50.631	0.784
15	Jose Maria Lopez	Dragon Racing	50.679	0.832
16	Gary Paffett	HWA AG	50.831	0.984
17	Oliver Turvey	NIO Formula E Team	50.831	0.984
18	Maximilian Gunther	Dragon Racing	50.862	1.015
19	Robin Frijns	Virgin Racing	50.960	1.113
20	Tom Dillmann	NIO Formula E Team	51.142	1.295
21	Sébastien Buemi	Nissan e.dams	51.176	1.329
22	Mitch Evans	Jaguar Racing	51.363	1.516
View full results