Sebastien Buemi topped the times in the first practice session ahead of the Monaco ePrix. The championship leader finished the session nearly half a second quicker than team mate Nico Prost in second.
Buemi left it until late in the session to jump to the top of the times, a position Nelson Piquet Jnr had taken earlier on. The NEXTEV driver briefly retook the top spot, only for Buemi to go quicker. He ended the session with a time of 52.795s.
Prost finished the session second fastest. The Frenchman was one of a number of drivers to run off at turn one. As this is the first time the cars have been on the Monaco circuit since 2015, exploring the track limits meant many drivers pushed a little too hard and briefly brought out the yellow flags at the corner.
A yellow flag late in the session led to a collision between Felix Rosenqvist and Oliver Turvey. Turvey slowed but Rosenqvist behind him didn’t appear to notice the yellow flag. The Mahindra driver hit the back of Turvey’s car, damaging the suspension and bringing out the red flag.
The incident ended the session, but not before Stephane Sarrazin jumped up to third, knocking Rosenqvist to fourth.
Rosenqvist’s team mate Nick Heidfeld had a fairly anonymous session. The German was 15th fastest, and was picked up by the stewards for speeding in the pit lane.
The Techeetah duo of Jean-Eric Vergne and Esteban Gutierrez had been running strong earlier in the session, briefly having both cars in the top three. The pace didn’t last until the end of the session. Vergne finished sixth, behind Jose Maria Lopez, and Gutierrez eighth, behind Sam Bird.
Piquet dropped back to ninth by the end of the session. Jaguar’s Mitch Evans rounded off the top ten.
Comments.
Loading comments…