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Berlin FE: Guenther tops final practice of 2019-20 season

A fantastic full-power lap from Maximilian Guenther meant he comfortably topped the final free practice session of the Formula E season ahead of the sixth Berlin race

The BMW Andretti driver posted a brilliant 250kW effort of 1m15.091s on the extended Tempelhof Airport configuration to beat champion Antonio Felix da Costa by 0.242 seconds.

Guenther, winner of the third race in the German capital, had also led the early normal-power times in the 45-minute session as he did the previous day too.

Despite messing up his first attempt at an attack mode lap with the 35kW boost, where he only found 0.3s over his standard run, Guenther responded with the fastest time set so far on the longer layout.

Da Costa found his locking rear brake issue had continued overnight and was proving particularly troublesome into Turn 1 and ran to a 1m15.333s.

Race-five victor Oliver Rowland headed a Nissan e.dams 3-4 over stablemate Sebastien Buemi, with the 2015-16 champion set to be beaten by a team-mate in the standings for the first time in FE.

Meanwhile, a strong run for Jaguar driver Mitch Evans took him to fifth ahead of Nyck de Vries for Mercedes - who was second at the time before being shuffled down.

Guenther's team-mate Alexander Sims ran to seventh ahead of Andre Lotterer, the Porsche driver leading the way with 10 minutes to run after being the first person to set a full-power time.

Alex Lynn beat Venturi Racing pilot Felipe Massa as they rounded out the top 10.

Behind Sam Bird and Edoardo Mortara, the second Mercedes of Stoffel Vandoorne was only 12th ahead of Lucas di Grassi.

Di Grassi, on course to finish outside the top three in the points for the first time, spun on his full-power out-lap into Turn 1.

Out-going champion Jean-Eric Vergne was also another surprise spinner as he lost the rear of his DS Techeetah on entry into the Turn 7 left-hander.

That meant Vergne ran to only 21st fastest ahead of Audi's Rene Rast, Tom Blomqvist - preparing for the second race of his FE return with Jaguar - and Daniel Abt.

Berlin Formula E Practice results

Pos Driver Team Time
1 Maximilian Guenther BMW 1m15.091s
2 Antonio Felix da Costa DS Techeetah 1m15.333s
3 Oliver Rowland Nissan e.dams 1m15.441s
4 Sebastien Buemi Nissan e.dams 1m15.495s
5 Mitch Evans Jaguar 1m15.591s
6 Nyck de Vries Mercedes 1m15.679s
7 Alexander Sims BMW 1m15.733s
8 Andre Lotterer Porsche 1m15.760s
9 Alex Lynn Mahindra 1m15.792s
10 Felipe Massa Venturi 1m15.826s
11 Sam Bird Virgin 1m15.841s
12 Edoardo Mortara Venturi 1m15.893s
13 Stoffel Vandoorne Mercedes 1m15.914s
14 Lucas di Grassi Audi 1m15.955s
15 Neel Jani Porsche 1m15.970s
16 Nico Muller Dragon 1m16.021s
17 Robin Frijns Virgin 1m16.058s
18 Sergio Sette Camara Dragon 1m16.082s
19 Jerome d'Ambrosio Mahindra 1m16.132s
20 Oliver Turvey NIO 1m16.242s
21 Jean-Eric Vergne DS Techeetah 1m16.271s
22 Rene Rast Audi 1m16.382s
23 Tom Blomqvist Jaguar 1m16.480s
24 Daniel Abt NIO 1m16.547s


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