After the fire in the paddock on Tuesday which forced Formula E to take two days of break to assess the damage and carry out the necessary analyzes on the reasons that had led to the fire in the WAE garage, the sole supplier of the batteries, the fully electric series is back on track. Only half a day, the morning session, took place on Tuesday, while today the action on the Spanish track only started in the afternoon from 2.00pm, with the cars still stationary before the lunch break.
As on Tuesday, Mitch Evans is ahead of everyone with the Jaguar: if on the first day he achieved a time of 1:24.474, today the New Zealander was unable to repeat himself, stopping the clock only at 1:24.791 recorded in the last half hour of rehearsals. The second position of Antonio Felix Da Costa also remained identical, trailing by just 23 thousandths from the top: however, the Portuguese did not lap for the entire session, but only in the final hours, given that for the first of the afternoon he had to give up his car to rookie Gabriela Jílková, who thus had the opportunity to drive the 99X Electric as required by the regulations.
Compared to the first day, the temperature of the track also changed: if on Tuesday it stood at around 15°C, also given the constant risk of rain, today it remained steadily above 20°C. Undoubtedly the stopwatch does not represent the most relevant aspect of the test, but it is interesting to note that already on Tuesday the teams were able to drop below the best reference recorded last year, at the debut of Gen 3: in 2022, in fact, the best time was Max Gunther in 1:25.127.
Photo by: Sam Bagnall / Motorsport Images
Maximilian Gunther, Maserati Racing, Maserati Tipo Folgore
Returning to the present, in the first two hours of the afternoon session Edoardo Mortara had initially set the best time of 1:25.661, with Mahindra able to run with only one car following the damage sustained in Tuesday’s fire, which also affected Nyck de Vries’ single-seater as well as the team’s IT equipment, given that their garage is adjacent to that of WAE. The former 2021 champion was therefore unable to take to the track, although the Indian team will be given extra time to recover from this week’s inconvenience.
Frederic Bertrand, Team Principal of the Mahindra Formula E team, has in fact confirmed that the team will have a private test session available before the opening race of the world championship on January 13th in Mexico City: “The agreement is that the weather that we don’t have available with the second car will be compensated in a private session”, declared Bertrand exclusively at Motorsport.com.
“The fact is that we have to make sure that we can send the car to Mexico, so quite quickly, but on the other hand we need time to rebuild everything. And we know that, in any case, some of the elements that we need to prepare the team adequately they will not be available before Mexico, perhaps even later, because the delivery times of some things that we have to order and buy are long.”
Photo by: Simon Galloway / Motorsport Images
Edoardo Mortara, Mahindra Racing
Beyond these problems, clearly part of the instrumentation was destroyed in the fire, which will also negatively affect the test program with the other car, because it will not be possible to carry out all the tests initially planned. Fortunately Bertrand confirmed that other teams have shown their support to Mahindra, providing equipment and as much help as possible. Despite some problems that led him to stop briefly on the track, Mortara still ended the day with a good third place, putting Robin Frijsn behind him, who returned to Envision after his stint in ABT Cupra in 2022.
The session ended a few minutes early due to a red flag due to Pascal Wehrlein’s stop on the track, who set the fifth fastest time, about two tenths behind Evans. Maximilian Guenther (Maserati MSG), Oliver Rowland (Nissan), Norman Nato (Andretti), Jehan Daruvala (making his series debut with Maserati) and Nick Cassidy (Jaguar) completed the top 10.
The reigning champion Jake Dennis finished in twelfth place, just over four tenths away: for the Brit it was the first occasion on which he took to the track during these tests, given that the rookie Zane Maloney had taken the its place on Tuesday. It is interesting to point out that Andretti also carried out a particular program regarding the use of the wake: by alternating the drivers so that they followed each other closely, the team tried to obtain as much data as possible on the use of the wake to calculate long-distance energy savings.
Photo by: Andrew Ferraro / Motorsport Images
Jake Dennis, Andretti Global, Porsche 99X Electric Gen3
The ERT drivers, the former NIO team which changed owners in recent weeks leading to a rebranding of the team, occupied the last positions of the grid, although it should be noted that Sergio Sette Camara completed only eight laps due to a problem to the battery.
The highest number of laps was recorded by Sebastien Buemi with the Envision, but he did not go beyond seventeenth position, less than half a second off the pace.
Friday’s practice is expected to take place between 8.30am and 6.30pm, making up only part of the time for the fire: in fact, Friday’s on-track action was originally scheduled to start at 9am and then end at 5pm with a two hour stop.
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