Antonio Felix da Costa topped opening practice for the Mexico City E-Prix, leading the Nissan-powered duo of Taylor Barnard and Oliver Rowland.
The session took place in mostly dry conditions, although there were a few reports of spots of rain during the 40-minutes, but Formula E’s new GEN3 Evo car ensured the official lap record at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez was comfortably broken, with da Costa’s best lap of 1m 10.855s – the race lap record being set by Jake Dennis last year with a 1m14.195s.
Second was NEOM McLaren driver Barnard, just 0.091s behind da Costa, with Rowland in the works Nissan a further 0.031s back, both drivers having made a late surge up the timesheets as the checkered flag came out.
Da Costa completed his fastest lap with the full complement of 350 kW of power, while his TAG Heuer Porsche teammate Pascal Wehrlein – the polesitter and winner of last year’s Mexico City E-Prix – was the highest-placed runner to lap with only 300 kW. He completed his best time on full power, however.
Sao Paulo E-Prix winner Mitch Evans was fifth for Jaguar TCS Racing, having gone quickest halfway through the session, with Lucas di Grassi sixth for Lola Yamaha Abt having spent a period in the second half of the session atop of the timesheets after becoming the first driver to break the 1m 11s barrier.