Sam Bird led the way in the opening free practice session of the Buenos Aires ePrix on Saturday morning, which was disrupted by a red flag when Simona de Silvestro crashed in the pit lane.
The Briton was the only driver to set a time beneath 1m10s, with his 1m09.913s in his DS Virgin Racing entry almost four tenths of a second faster than Daniel Abt of Audi Sport Abt.
Bird was the only Virgin Racing driver to take to the track during the session with Jean-Eric Vergne likely to miss the event due to food poisoning.
As well as the top two, the two NEXTEV TCR entries of Nelson Piquet Jr and Oliver Turvey both used ‘full power’ laps during the 45-minute session, with fifth placed Sebastien Buemi the first of those to not to run at full power for e.DAMS.
Buemi’s main championship rival Lucas di Grassi was sixth in the second Audi Sport Abt entry, ahead of Stephane Sarrazin of Venturi and Nicolas Prost of e.DAMS, while Robin Frijns of Andretti Autosport and Antonio Felix da Costa of Team Aguri completed the top ten.
The session had to be halted after just a handful of minutes after de Silvestro clipped the inside wall on the exit of the pit lane, which tore off her rear suspension.
Salvador Duran, on his return to Team Aguri, and Bruno Senna of Mahindra both ran down the escape road at turn ten during the session, while both Piquet and Frijns had moments at turn one.
Buenos Aires ePrix Free Practice 1 Result
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