The Renault e.dams team dominated the half hour Friday test session in Beijing, with Nicolas Prost leading team-mate Sebastien Buemi.
Frenchman Prost set a time of 1m37.291s, which was 0.621s faster than Swiss team-mate Buemi, but third placed Jean-Eric Vergne was more than two seconds down on the ultimate pace at the start of his first weekend with the DS Virgin Racing team.
Times were much quicker than they had been at this track twelve months ago, with Prost’s time over four seconds faster than the pole position time, although part of this can be attributed to the removal of one of the chicanes.
The two Mahindra Racing cars of Brazilian Bruno Senna and new team-mate Nick Heidfeld were fourth and fifth, with Oliver Turvey of reigning champions NEXTEV TCR rounding out the top six.
Turvey’s team-mate and season one champion Nelson Piquet Jr had a much less successful session, locking his brakes up on one occasion down the escape road before stopping on track at turn ten with a mechanical issue. Piquet’s issues meant he finished down in thirteenth position.
Jerome d’Ambrosio was seventh for Dragon Racing ahead of Abt Schaeffler Audi Sport duo Lucas di Grassi and Daniel Abt, while Sam Bird completed the top ten in the second Virgin entry.
Eighteen of the twenty entries took to the track, with only the Trulli Formula E Team unable to get out on track.
Beijing Friday Test Times
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