The German driver tops the leader board during the free practice on his home soil, followed by Envision and DS Penske.
Credit: Formula E Media Bank / Simon Galloway
And here we are: it’s time for FP2 in Berlin, baby. Beautiful sun shining on the track despite lower temperatures in the morning (we’re talking about 10C) is a promise of a fantastic day here at the old Tempelhof airport. Despite not many fans making it on track for the practice session, we expect the grandstands to be buzzing with excitements in the next few hours.
The light went green and the session has started. Most of the pack decided to go out immediately, to get some good runs before qualifying commences in the next few hours. First drivers to set times were Hughes, with 1:14.337s, followed by his team-mate Rast, two Maserati’s, Lotterer, Bird, Evans and two NIO’s finishing the top 10.
Oliver Rowland decided to investigate the track outside of the racing line and got bumped into the barrier. Red flag was out, in order to get Rowland out from turn 1. He was quickly removed and with 17 minutes on the clock, the session was restarted.
The time has been bumped up to 20 minutes remaining after the time lost during the flag was added, and it’s been Dennis, Buemi, Cassidy, Vandoorne and Bird in P5. It seems the Envisions are finding their groove here in Berlin, despite the track not being the kindest to them in the past.
And it’s the same for the Jaguars, with Evans going P1 soon after, but being replaced once again by the green Envision. Will the most exciting fight of this season be between the factory and the customer team? 17 minutes till the end of the session and so far it’s the customer who’s on top. That will be feisty, if we can say so ourselves.
Around the 15 minutes mark many drivers decided to go back to the pits, we’ve seen some tyre changes on McLaren, and the rest just taking a break before going back on track. In the meantime, we’re got Günther on P1, followed by the two DS’ of Vergne and Vandoorne respectively. Fenestraz continued to push, to get as much experience of this track as possible due to the fact that as a rookie, it’s an uncomfortable position to be in when you arrive on track that most of the grid knows very well at this point. And he’s said it himself yesterday, so we believe him.
Eight minutes left on the clock and everyone is back on track. The top 10 at that point was: Günther, Vergne, Vandoorne, Buemi, Lotterer, Evans, Bird, Da Costa, Rast and Dennis in P10. There hasn’t been much change in the order for the remaining of the session.
The checkered flag is out and the final order of the session was: Günther, Cassidy, Vergne, Da Costa, Vandoorne, Buemi, Di Grassi, Bird, Lotterer and Evans in P10, despite the Kiwi pulling to the side of the track and stopping the car.
