Mitch Evans remained on top on Day 2 of Formula E test in Valencia as they returned to the track post the fire incident.
The Kiwi led the way with a storming 1m24.791s at the last, with the session drawing to a close and meant it was two in two. The Jaguar TCS Racing driver himself then brought the four hour 30 minute session to a slightly premature end as his car stopped out on track.
Evans headed Antonio Felix da Costa, despite the Portuguese only taking part in the final 60 minutes of the running. Rookie Gabriela Jilkova had jumped into the Porsche beforehand for a 46-lap run. Da Costa wound up just 0.023 seconds back of the benchmark time.
Mahindra Racing’s Edoardo Mortara rounded out the top three just under 0.1 seconds back. This was a remarkable effort by the team given the challenges they faced to get a car out on-track following the firs in the paddock that affected their preparations earlier in the week.
He had been top for the vast majority of the session until Evans’ timesheet topper came along. Nick Cassidy and Robin Frijns closed out the top five in the session, Frijns seemingly adapting well to his return to the Envision Racing team, this time in a Teams’ title-winning car as barely half a second split the top 19 drivers.
Meanwhile, the sister Jaguar of Nick Cassidy rounded out the top 10, with both Maserati drivers also making it home inside the first 10 runners – Maximilian Guenther sicth and rookie Jehan Daruvala an impressive eighth. Oliver Rowland also reminded us of the pace he can produce despite a few months out of Formula E with the seventh quickest time of the day.
Back tomorrow…
We’re back on-track from 0830 UTC tomorrow morning, with action running all the way to 1830 UTC as teams take advantage of their only official chance to test together before Season 10 starts proper in Mexico City in mid-January.
Here’s what happened on Day 1
[Note: The story is as per press release]
