Subscribe

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe

Formula E Ad Diriyah: Virgin driver Bird fastest in post-race test

Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird topped the post-race ABB FIA Formula E test in Ad Diriyah, beating DS Techeetah's Jean-Eric Vergne to the fastest time

Teams were handed extra slots if they ran a female driver in addition to their regular racers during Sunday's test, with only Audi and Jaguar fielding a single-car entry.

Bird set a best time of 1m09.668s around the 1.5-mile circuit, which was 0.876 seconds quicker than the lap his team-mate Robin Frijns posted to top the morning running.

Vergne, who finished second to BMW Andretti's Antonio Felix da Costa in Saturday's race, wound up 0.113s adrift.

Oliver Rowland put Nissan e.dams third in the car he shared with Carmen Jorda during the afternoon, and was 0.483s slower than Bird's best time.

Ex-McLaren Formula 1 driver Stoffel Vandoorne finished the afternoon session in fourth for HWA, but did cause a late red flag that brought the test to an end a few minutes early.

Mitch Evans put his Jaguar fifth fastest, ahead of Audi's Nico Muller, who crashed in the morning and caused a red flag, and was then delayed in returning to the track by a sensor issue.

Edoardo Mortara was seventh for Venturi, ahead of Dragon's Jose Maria Lopez, who shared his car with Pippa Mann in the afternoon.

Third-place finisher in the race, Jerome D'Ambrosio, was ninth fastest for Mahindra Racing, with Simona de Silvestro (pictured above) rounding out the top 10 in the afternoon for Venturi.

Nissan's Sebastien Buemi was 11th in the afternoon, just ahead of Techeetah's Tatiana Calderon.

Tom Dillmann put NIO into P13 after taking over Oliver Turvey's car for the afternoon, and he brought out the first red flag of the session when he crashed at Turn 3, which caused a lengthy delay while the car was recovered.

Jamie Chadwick missed much of the morning running because of a battery issue on her NIO machine, but she did get out on track late in that session and ended up 14th in the afternoon.

Alexander Sims set BMW's best time in the afternoon, which was 1.615s slower than he went in the morning.

He co-shared with Beitske Visser, who had a battery issue on the car she used in the morning that meant it could not be used again.

Katherine Legge ended the afternoon in 16th place for Mahindra, ahead of Maximillian Gunther (Dragon), while Carrie Schreiner was 18th for HWA.

Amna Al Qubaisi was the only driver not to take to the track in the afternoon after she touched a barrier with the rear of her Virgin car at Turn 17 - the long right hander leading onto the track's main straight - during the morning, which broke the driveshaft.

That brought out the day's first red flag, with the second being caused by Gunther crashing midway through the morning running.

Be part of the Autosport community

Join the conversation
Previous article Da Costa's Ad Diriyah FE win a 'historic' moment for BMW - Marquadt
Next article Formula E Ad Diriyah: Techeetah explains cause of in-race penalties

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

Sign up for free

  • Get quick access to your favorite articles

  • Manage alerts on breaking news and favorite drivers

  • Make your voice heard with article commenting.

Autosport Plus

Discover premium content
Subscribe