Oliver Rowland topped the opening practice session of the Sao Paulo E-Prix as Season 11 of the ABB Formula E World Championship got underway.
It was a strong session for Nissan, with the factory team locking out the top two spots, while customer NEOM McLaren completed the top five with Taylor Barnard.
Rowland’s best time of 1m10.162 was just 0.080s ahead of his teammate Norman Nato, but a staggering 2.627s quicker than the pole time from last season’s Sao Paulo E-Prix, the addition of all-wheel-drive for full-power laps and stickier Hankook rubber for this season already showing a huge step forward from GEN3 to the new GEN3 Evo formula.
Jake Dennis was third quickest in the Porsche-powered Andretti, but 0.267s off Rowland’s table-topping time. Edoardo Mortara gave a taste of the step forward Mahindra has been expected to make by ending the session fourth.
Barnard’s fifth-fastest time came towards the end of a session where he completed a high of 21 laps — the only drive above 20, for that matter.
Mitch Evans was the highest-placed Jaguar in sixth for the factory team, despite his car coming to a halt in the final 2 minutes of the session due to as as-yet undiagnosed issue. He got his car going again with 50 seconds to go but was unable to improve his time.
Evans finished ahead of Envision Racing’s customer car of Robin Frijns. The Dutchman was among the first to complete a lap on full power, doing so around halfway through the session, and briefly going top of the charts.