Hyderabad E-Prix – Sam Bird topped the times for Jaguar ahead of Jean-Eric Vergne and Nick Cassidy in final practice before qualifying.
There wasn’t the usual huge rush to the track as the session went green, more like a steady trickle, but it was Andre Lotterer in the Porsche-powered Andretti who was first out after having only completed one lap in FP1 yesterday and picked up a puncture on it before Pascal Wehrlein’s crash and subsequent benching of all Porsche cars until the issue for the incident was identified.
(FP2) Second Practice Results – 2023 Hyderabad E-Prix
After being checked out at the local hospital after his heavy collision with the wall, Wehrlein has been deemed fit and ready to race, while Porsche is obviously happy with the safety of their cars. Lotterer’s 1:20.113 was the first time on the board and after ten minutes it was the Jaguar of Mitch Evans at the top, half a second ahead of reigning champion Stoffel Vandoorne, with the first sub-75 second lap of the weekend, a 1:14.926 which was faster than Sebastien Buemi’s session topping time in yesterday’s practice.
Speaking of Buemi, he was the only one without a time on the board and hadn’t even headed out of the Envision garage yet. The Swiss driver finally made it out with just over ten minutes left of the session and it was Lucas di Grassi at the top of the times at that point with a 1:14.118 for Mahindra.
The times dipped into the 1:13s with six minutes of the session to go as Nick Cassidy, in the other Envision, set a 1:13.811 but he didn’t get to hold onto P1 for more than a couple of minutes as Bird went 0.180 seconds quicker in his Jaguar.
In the dying minutes Bird did set a time six hundredths faster but had gone over track limits so it was deleted. Despite that his 1:13.631 was good enough to top the session, 0.113 seconds ahead of Penske’s Vergne.
Cassidy’s time saw him end P3 while Edoardo Mortara was P4 for Maserati with a 1:14.006. Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz was P5, 0.397 seconds off Bird’s time while Rene Rast’s best lap was just 0.001 seconds slower than the rookie.
In a much less dramatic session than yesterday, Wehrlein was the quickest of the Porsche cars in P7 with a 1:14.036 ahead of di Grassi and Buemi who had both set a 1:14.118. The final driver in the top ten was NIO 333’s Dan Ticktum who was just over half a second off Bird’s pace.
