Envision Virgin Racing’s Robin Frijns topped the times at the end of day two of Formula E pre-season testing for the 2019-20 ABB FIA Formula E Championship at Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Valencia, meaning that the British team topped the timesheets for a second successive day.
The Dutchman’s 1 min 15.377 was 57-thousandths of a second faster than Maximillian Gunther for BMW i Andretti Motorsport, who for the second day running ended in second place in what has been a promising start to his career with the German manufacturer.
The times were close throughout the rest of the pack with the top 17 drivers covered by half a second, and 21 of the 24 drivers within a second of Frijns’ pace-setting time.
Just like on day one, it was Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E team driver Nyck de Vries who was at the heart of the drama as he returned to the garage early in the afternoon session, failing to set a time in the day’s second session. He suffered technical gremlins and collided with the chicane on the back straight during the morning running.
Also in strife was Porsche FE racer Andre Lotterer, who moments after De Vries’ technical troubles clipped the chicane which threw up a red flag. He was followed in the morning session by both Jerome d’Ambrosio and Felipe Massa who also succumbed to the same fate.
The afternoon session was more incident-free with the teams looking to get race-pace data in a frenetic afternoon of running. That was except pace-setter from yesterday, Britain’s Sam Bird, who clipped the chicane and damaged the front-left of his car in the process.
The official classification from testing can be seen here as testing continues on Friday for the final day of pre-season testing before the start of the 2019-20 ABB FIA Formula E Championship.
