Formula E is already in Santiago. On a first contact with a bumpy and fast track, Sam Bird has taken the best time of the first session, which ended earlier than scheduled due to an accident for Maro Engel. FP2 ended the same way, with Nico Prost hitting the wall with two minutes to go and Jean-Éric Vergne taking the best time.
FP1 kick-off marked the beginning of the first Santiago ePrix ever. The track surface was bumpy, and the grid was low, which caused several driving mistakes during the first stages of the session. Drivers such as Felix Rosenqvist, Nelson Piquet and Luca Filippi ran wide in turn 3, which comes after the longest straight on the track.
The first driver to hit the wall was Sébastien Buemi, whose crash wasn’t heavy at all but strong enough to damage his suspension and end the session for him.
With 4 minutes to go, Maro Engel crashed and the red flag waved. The session was finished at that moment by Race Direction and Sam Bird took the best time, followed by championship leader Rosenqvist and Jean-Éric Vergne.
Moving into FP2 temperature had increased and track conditions had improved, so there were not any incidents, but Dragon Racing had more of the reliability issues that have been marring their entire season. Due to drivers using qualifying power mode, times from the morning session were quickly improved.
It had been a clean session until Nico Prost crashed his Renault e.Dams into the wall with two minutes to go. Once again, there was a red flag and the session ended before it was expected.
Vergne had set the best time of the session (1:18.662) a few moments before the crash. Alex Lynn was second, only three hundreths of a second behind the Frenchman, and Mitch Evans was third, followed by the two Mahindra cars.
Qualifying session for the Santiago de Chile will start today at 12:00 local time (16:00 CET), with the race scheduled at 16:00 local. 20:00 CET.