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Diriyah Formula E: Bird fastest in practice as season gets underway

Envision Virgin Racing's Sam Bird set the fast time across the practice sessions for the 2019-20 Formula E season-opening Diriyah E-Prix, as drivers struggled with the new low-grip surface

As Autosport reported on Thursday, the sand sitting on top of the new asphalt at the Riyadh track created very low-grip conditions - which were exaggerated by the low temperatures at the start of the day on Friday.

In FP1, which was topped by Bird's Virgin team-mate Robin Frijns on a 1m16.137s, NIO 333 driver Ma Qing Hua crashed on his out-lap - bringing out the session's first red flag.

Brendon Hartley (Dragon) later caused the session's second practice red flag when he lost the rear of his car at the looping left of Turn 4 after running over a crumbling asphalt patch and clouting the wall with the left-rear of his car and breaking its suspension.

Ahead of FP2, the wall on the inside of Turn 4 was moved further onto the track to cover up a manhole cover - which had been added to improve drainage at the track following the wet weather that affected the inaugural event last year - where the asphalt was breaking apart.

That change meant the 30-minute second session started with the first two laps - around four minutes in duration - run under full-course yellow conditions.

When the drivers were allowed to return to normal speeds, they were severely struggling for grip all the way around the lap - with the sandy surface off-line particularly perilous.

New DS Techeetah recruit Antonio Felix da Costa, Bird, Oliver Rowland (Nissan e.dams) and Mercedes driver Stoffel Vandoorne all enjoyed time at the head of the standings during the early running, during which laps were slower than Frijns's best from FP1.

But just after halfway through FP2, Bird set a time of 1m16.033s to usurp his team-mate's lap from the day's initial 45-minute running, before Frijns hit back with the first sub 1m16s effort - a 1m15.824s.

That remained the benchmark until the closing moments of FP2, where a flurry of fast times were set.

Rowland and his Nissan team-mate Sebastien Buemi both took hold of top spot before Venturi Racing's Edoardo Mortara moved ahead and looked to have that position locked down when the chequered flag fell.

But Bird was among the drivers still on a flying lap and he shot back to the top spot with a 1m14.353s - the only sub 1m15s lap of the session.

That put Bird 0.949 seconds clear of the pack, before da Costa arrived to trim his advantage to 0.794s with a 1m15.147s.

Mortara held onto third ahead of Buemi and Rowland, with Daniel Abt (Audi) and Mahindra Racing's Jerome D'Ambrosio taking sixth and seventh ahead of Frijns.

Porsche driver Andre Lotterer and Pascal Wehrlein (Mahindra) rounded out the top 10.

Reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne finished 11th in FP2, but had a bizarre end to the session when he clipped the back of Alexander Sims's BMW-Andretti-run car at Turn 18 - the race's first corner - on his final flying lap.

Sims ended the session in 14th ahead of Jaguar's Mitch Evans, who also lost out due to an incident at Turn 18.

Evans looked set to jump up the order when he encountered Nyck de Vries and Buemi battling for track position at the left-hander and had to back out of his lap.

Mercedes pair Vandoorne and de Vries sandwiched the second Porsche-run car of Neel Jani, with that trio 19th, 20th and 21st.

James Calado ended up 22nd for Jaguar but he also looked set to improve before being hampered by an issue in traffic.

As Calado approach the right-hand kink of Turn 20 he encountered Abt running slowly on the racing line and had to take the corner wider than usual, going onto the slippery off-line route and striking the wall on the exit, picking up a puncture.

Calado returned to the track at the end of session, with Ma making a brief FP2 appearance late-on to take P23.

Hartley did get out early in FP2 after repairs were made to his car, but he came in again without setting a representative time after reporting braking issues.

FP1 times

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 1m16.137s - 21
2 Nico Muller Dragon Penske 1m17.401s 1.264s 20
3 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 1m17.561s 1.424s 21
4 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes Mercedes 1m17.693s 1.556s 19
5 Sebastien Buemi Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m17.847s 1.710s 20
6 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah DS 1m17.996s 1.859s 22
7 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 1m18.347s 2.210s 22
8 Daniel Abt Audi Audi 1m18.406s 2.269s 19
9 Nyck de Vries Mercedes Mercedes 1m18.426s 2.289s 20
10 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 1m18.441s 2.304s 18
11 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 1m18.581s 2.444s 22
12 Felipe Massa Venturi Mercedes 1m18.618s 2.481s 21
13 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Mercedes 1m18.749s 2.612s 18
14 Alexander Sims BMW BMW 1m18.839s 2.702s 21
15 Andre Lotterer Porsche Porsche 1m18.873s 2.736s 18
16 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1m19.185s 3.048s 20
17 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 1m19.310s 3.173s 18
18 Neel Jani Porsche Porsche 1m19.327s 3.190s 20
19 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m20.045s 3.908s 16
20 Maximilian Guenther BMW BMW 1m20.303s 4.166s 20
21 James Calado Jaguar Jaguar 1m20.701s 4.564s 21
22 Brendon Hartley Dragon Penske 1m21.536s 5.399s 15
23 Ma Qinghua NIO NIO - - 1
24 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Mahindra - - 8

FP2 times

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 1m14.353s - 14
2 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah DS 1m15.147s 0.794s 17
3 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Mercedes 1m15.302s 0.949s 16
4 Sebastien Buemi Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m15.329s 0.976s 18
5 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m15.430s 1.077s 19
6 Daniel Abt Audi Audi 1m15.446s 1.093s 15
7 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 1m15.578s 1.225s 16
8 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 1m15.824s 1.471s 14
9 Andre Lotterer Porsche Porsche 1m15.961s 1.608s 17
10 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Mahindra 1m15.962s 1.609s 19
11 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 1m16.019s 1.666s 15
12 Felipe Massa Venturi Mercedes 1m16.166s 1.813s 17
13 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 1m16.582s 2.229s 17
14 Alexander Sims BMW BMW 1m16.609s 2.256s 13
15 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 1m16.765s 2.412s 15
16 Maximilian Guenther BMW BMW 1m16.871s 2.518s 17
17 Nico Muller Dragon Penske 1m16.919s 2.566s 11
18 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1m17.119s 2.766s 14
19 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes Mercedes 1m17.340s 2.987s 16
20 Neel Jani Porsche Porsche 1m17.474s 3.121s 19
21 Nyck de Vries Mercedes Mercedes 1m17.998s 3.645s 17
22 James Calado Jaguar Jaguar 1m19.843s 5.490s 15
23 Ma Qinghua NIO NIO 1m24.830s 10.477s 5
24 Brendon Hartley Dragon Penske - - 2

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