Duval tops sole Putrajaya practice session

Nov 7, 2015
3 min read

Loic Duval set the fastest time in practice with a 1:20.188, just eight hundredths of a second ahead of Sebastian Buemi. The Dragon Racing driver did a late 200kW lap in the final minutes of the session, and spun on his second attempt at a qualifying run, so there could yet be more time to be found.

The session was red flagged three times. Firstly for a sign that had fallen off one of the barriers, then for a screw coming loose on one of the kerbs and finally for Jacques Villeneuve’s stricken Venturi car. Unlike other Formula E races, this is the only practice session before qualifying, meaning the teams’ programs were already condensed to fit the schedule. The multiple interruptions caused teams to further compress their plans.

Daniel Abt was 3rd with a 1:20.468 with team mate Lucas di Grassi in 5th, who almost set the fastest lap when he set purples sector 1 and 2 times, but locked the rears into turn 10 and got oversteer at turn 12; costing him the lap. However, the ABT seems to be in a stronger position than it was in Beijing a fortnight ago.

They were split by DS Virgin’s Sam Bird, who had one of his 200kW laps interrupted by a yellow flag caused by di Grassi having to use the escape road at turn 3. Nick Heidfeld was 6th for Mahindra ahead of Team Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa; split by just six hundredths of a second.

Jean-Eric Vergne was 8th, six tenths off the pace with Bruno Senna and Stephane Sarrazin completing the top 10, which was covered by a little over a single second.

It was clear that both NEXTEV TCR drivers were struggling with oversteer, though Oliver Turvey seemed to handle it better than team mate Nelson Piquet Jr; Turvey was 11th with Piquet 16th and 2.4 seconds off the ultimate pace.

Jerome D’Ambrosio was 12th but was on a purple lap at the end of the session to top his Dragon team mate at the head of the timesheets, but his charge was halted by Turvey’s parked car on the exit of the turn 10 hairpin which brought out the yellow flags.

One of the key features of the weekend will be looking at battery temperatures. Although it was just 8:00am local time when the session started, humidity was already in excess of 90%. The added heat could cause some reliability concerns down the road, with rain also expected just after the start of qualifying, just to add a little more spice to an already roasting dish.

Full classification