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Diriyah Formula E: Da Costa tops Saturday practice, Vergne crashes

DS Techeetah's Antonio Felix da Costa headed Saturday's Formula E practice session ahead of the Diriyah E-Prix, punching in his fastest full-power lap two minutes from the end

Circuit conditions were vastly improved over Friday's as the track continued to rubber in, giving the drivers almost 3.5 seconds' advantage over the qualifying laps for the first race.

Da Costa posted a 1m11.084s lap to pick off Oliver Rowland's then-pacesetting time, as the Nissan e.dams driver was the first to submit a lap time on the full allowance of 250kW.

After Rowland tapped into the maximum power levels with 10 minutes to go, the practice order began to shuffle around as the field prepared for qualifying runs.

Once Da Costa had completed a clean sweep of best sector times, Friday's polesitter Alexander Sims plonked his BMW Andretti car into second, before race one winner Sam Bird dispatched his countryman to take runner-up spot - just 0.022s behind Da Costa.

Sims enjoyed multiple appearances at the top of the timing boards during the 200kW runs in the early stages, trading times with Da Costa, Edoardo Mortara and Rowland throughout the middle portion of the session.

Rowland's original full-power benchmark was good enough for fourth place, just 0.030s clear of Mahindra's Pascal Wehrlein.

Wehrlein had set the then-fastest middle sector on his lap, before encountering Venturi's Mortara in the final sector - which hindered any further progress up the timing board.

Robin Frijns popped up into sixth despite encountering the glacial Ma Qing Hua towards the end of his final lap, the Envision Virgin driver heading the works Audi duo of Daniel Abt and Lucas di Grassi.

Sims' team-mate Maximilian Guenther bagged ninth, while Mitch Evans completed the top 10 for Jaguar.

Jerome d'Ambrosio was the last driver in the 1m11s bracket in 11th, beating Sebastien Buemi by 0.2s.

Mortara and team-mate Felipe Massa were locked in 13th and 14th; having spent the majority of the session around the upper echelons of the field, the two could not capitalise on full-power running.

Having impressed with podium finishes on Friday, Andre Lotterer and Stoffel Vandoorne could only occupy 15th and 16th overall for Porsche and Mercedes respectively.

Reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne endured another miserable session, propping up the timesheets after hitting the wall at Turn 16 in the opening 10 minutes, which broke his left-rear suspension.

Techeetah quickly repaired the damage to his car, but Vergne was unable to rejoin the session despite getting back into the cockpit as he had to have a precautionary battery change due to the high level of g-force recorded in his wallstrike.

Vergne is expected to take part in qualifying later on Saturday.

FP3 times

Pos Driver Team Car Time Gap Laps
1 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah DS 1m11.084s - 25
2 Sam Bird Virgin Audi 1m11.106s 0.022s 23
3 Alexander Sims BMW BMW 1m11.177s 0.093s 26
4 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m11.493s 0.409s 28
5 Pascal Wehrlein Mahindra Mahindra 1m11.523s 0.439s 25
6 Robin Frijns Virgin Audi 1m11.608s 0.524s 23
7 Daniel Abt Audi Audi 1m11.643s 0.559s 24
8 Lucas di Grassi Audi Audi 1m11.696s 0.612s 23
9 Maximilian Guenther BMW BMW 1m11.885s 0.801s 31
10 Mitch Evans Jaguar Jaguar 1m11.925s 0.841s 26
11 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra Mahindra 1m11.968s 0.884s 25
12 Sebastien Buemi Nissan e.dams Nissan 1m12.171s 1.087s 27
13 Edoardo Mortara Venturi Mercedes 1m12.197s 1.113s 27
14 Felipe Massa Venturi Mercedes 1m12.223s 1.139s 22
15 Andre Lotterer Porsche Porsche 1m12.239s 1.155s 27
16 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes Mercedes 1m12.319s 1.235s 25
17 Nico Muller Dragon Penske 1m12.370s 1.286s 25
18 Brendon Hartley Dragon Penske 1m12.717s 1.633s 27
19 Nyck de Vries Mercedes Mercedes 1m12.740s 1.656s 25
20 Ma Qinghua NIO NIO 1m12.755s 1.671s 28
21 Oliver Turvey NIO NIO 1m12.755s 1.671s 24
22 Neel Jani Porsche Porsche 1m13.087s 2.003s 27
23 James Calado Jaguar Jaguar 1m14.004s 2.920s 20
24 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah DS 1m17.144s 6.060s 6


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