Diriyah E-Prix: De Vries leads Mercedes 1-2 in second practice

De Vries set the early pace in the 30-minute afternoon session, his time of 1m10.535s putting him well clear of the top Nissan e.dams of Oliver Rowland.

The first red flag was waved with 17 minutes on the clock when the rear of Muller's Dragon Penske snapped going into Turn 7, and he hit the barriers rear-first and suffered heavy damage to the bodywork.

When practice resumed six minutes later, laptimes tumbled at a rapid rate, with a number of drivers breaking into 1m09s.

Rowland was the first driver to dip into the 1m08s, before de Vries put himself back on top with a time of 1m08.853s.

That was fractionally quicker than his Thursday's benchmark which was set in much cooler conditions during the night-time, and remained unbeaten after Robin Frijns brought out another red flag after crashing his Envision Virgin Racing with just two minutes to go.

Stoffel Vandoorne finished two tenths behind his teammate in second, while Venturi driver Edoardo Mortara's time of 1m08.836s effectively made it a one-two-three for Mercedes powertrains.

Rowland was shuffled down to fourth in the final order ahead of Porsche's Andre Lotterer, and despite a brush with the wall Sergio Sette Camara was a strong sixth for the Dragon Penske team that is starting the season with the same powertrain as last season.

Alex Lynn was Mahindra's top runner in seventh, half a second down on de Vries, while Sebastien Buemi was eighth in the second of the Nissan cars ahead of Mitch Evans (Jaguar) and Maximilian Gunther (BMW Andretti).

Sam Bird was 11th in his second practice outing with his new team Jaguar, while Frijns's previous lap of 1m09.539s was good enough for 12th despite his late crash in the session.

The two DS Techeetah cars were surprisingly off the pace with Antonio Felix da Costa and Jean-Eric Vergne finishing 18th and 20th respectively, although not all drivers were able to complete full power laps in the session.

Cla Driver Team Laps Time Gap
1 Netherlands Nyck de Vries Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team 16 1'08.583  
2 Belgium Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes-EQ Formula E Team 16 1'08.760 0.177
3 Switzerland Edoardo Mortara Monaco Venturi 16 1'08.836 0.253
4 United Kingdom Oliver Rowland France DAMS 16 1'08.887 0.304
5 Germany Andre Lotterer Germany Porsche Team 16 1'08.955 0.372
6 Brazil Sergio Sette Camara DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT 14 1'09.121 0.538
7 United Kingdom Alex Lynn India Mahindra Racing 16 1'09.195 0.612
8 Switzerland Sébastien Buemi France DAMS 15 1'09.232 0.649
9 New Zealand Mitch Evans Jaguar Racing 15 1'09.398 0.815
10 Germany Maximilian Gunther United States Andretti Autosport 12 1'09.455 0.872
11 United Kingdom Sam Bird Jaguar Racing 15 1'09.506 0.923
12 Netherlands Robin Frijns United Kingdom Virgin Racing 9 1'09.539 0.956
13 Germany René Rast Germany Team Abt 14 1'09.743 1.160
14 France Norman Nato Monaco Venturi 15 1'09.808 1.225
15 Brazil Lucas di Grassi Germany Team Abt 13 1'09.919 1.336
16 Germany Pascal Wehrlein Germany Porsche Team 15 1'10.046 1.463
17 United Kingdom Alexander Sims India Mahindra Racing 15 1'10.077 1.494
18 Portugal Antonio Felix da Costa China Techeetah 12 1'10.155 1.572
19 United Kingdom Oliver Turvey United Kingdom NIO Formula E Team 14 1'10.341 1.758
20 France Jean-Eric Vergne China Techeetah 10 1'10.425 1.842
21 United Kingdom Tom Blomqvist United Kingdom NIO Formula E Team 14 1'10.640 2.057
22 United Kingdom Jake Dennis United States Andretti Autosport 12 1'10.743 2.160
23 Switzerland Nico Müller DRAGON / PENSKE AUTOSPORT 8 1'11.111 2.528
24 New Zealand Nick Cassidy United Kingdom Virgin Racing 12 1'11.174 2.591

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About this article

Series Formula E
Event Diriyah ePrix I
Sub-event Practice 2
Author Rachit Thukral