Mortara keeps Mahindra on top in FE testing

Edorardo Mortara kept Mahindra at the top of the times on the third day of Formula E pre-season testing in Madrid, with teammate Nyck de Vries also ending the day in the top three.

Running started in damp conditions following an overnight shower, but has dried up by the afternoon when the day’s fastest laps were completed. Mortara's best time of 1m 21.680s was 0.098s quicker than Jake Dennis, the Andretti driver splitting the two Mahindras in second, while de Vries was a further 0.073s back. The Dutchman ran the fewest number of laps during the day, with just 38 tours completed.
It was an incredibly tight field, with fourth placed Pascal Wehrlein – who went fastest on the opening day – just 0.004s off de Vries, and his Porsche teammate Nico Mueller another 0.066s back.

Nick Cassidy broke into the top six once again for Citroen Racing, ahead of fellow Stellantis newcomer Taylor Barnard for DS Penske, while the Nissans of Norman Nato and Oliver Rowland with eighth and ninth and Antonio Felix da Costa was 10th for Jaguar TCS Racing.

The top-10 was covered by just 0.304s, with 1.093s covering the entire field, with everyone setting their best times on the standard 300kW, rear-wheel-drive setting rather than the 350kW four-wheel-drive setting used for qualifying Duels, race starts, and Attack Mode.

Felipe Drugovich was the fastest rookie in the field and briefly set the pace in the damp conditions towards the start of the day, eventually going 11th quickest overall for Andretti – and completed the most laps of the day with 53 – ahead of Maximilian Guenther in the other DS Penske, with Tuesday afternoon pacesetter Dan Ticktum 13th for Cupra Kiro.

Jean-Eric Vergne was 14th for Citroen – both of the French brand’s cars had a spell at the top of the timesheets during the day – ahead of Sebastien Buemi (Envision Racing), who had a trip into the Turn 8 gravel early in the day – Pepe Marti (Kiro), and Mitch Evans (Jaguar), with the Lola Yahama Abts of Lucas di Grassi and Zane Maloney – split by Envision's Joel Eriksson – completing the field.

Testing for the race drivers concludes Thursday, ahead of the second official Formula E Women's Test on Friday.

Topics

mahindra racing

formula e

edorado mortara

nyck de vries

jake dennis

porsche

ds penske

jaguar tcs racing

citroen racing

24 hours of le mans

Formula E

ShareThis is disabled until you accept Social Networking cookies.

Dominik Wilde

Dominik often jokes that he was born in the wrong country – a lover of NASCAR and IndyCar, he covered both in a past life as a junior at Autosport in the UK, but he’s spent most of his career to date covering the sliding and flying antics of the U.S.’ interpretation of rallycross. Rather fitting for a man that says he likes “seeing cars do what they’re not supposed to do”, previously worked for a car stunt show, and once even rolled a rally car with Travis Pastrana. He was also comprehensively beaten in a kart race by Sebastien Loeb once, but who hasn’t been?

Read Dominik Wilde's articles