Jakarta E-Prix 1 – Maximilian Guenther went two for two in the practices as he beat Jake Dennis to the top of FP2 ahead of the first of two Jakarta races.
There are a couple of new faces on track this weekend, with Andre Lotterer taking the time to prepare for next weekend’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, Avalanche Andretti have got their reserve driver, David Beckmann in the cockpit. Meanwhile, since Monaco, Mahindra and Oliver Rowland have agreed that the British racer would step aside for the remainder of the season and so Roberto Merhi will be partnering Lucas di Grassi for the doubleheader.
(FP2) Second Practice Results – 2023 Jakarta E-Prix
As in FP1, the Maseratis of Maximilian Guenther and Edoardo Mortara led the way out onto the sunny, and dusty Jakarta track. The German opened the times with a 1:10.628 while Mortara tapped the wall towards the end of his lap and ducked into the pits with some damage to his wheel. There seemed to be a bit of work for the Monegasque team to do as Mortara got out of the car and took his helmet off.
After ten minutes Guenther had brought the time down to a 1:09.309, while Jean-Eric Vergne was a tenth behind in P2 and Jake Dennis was sitting in P3, Mortara was the only driver without a time at that stage and Maserati reported that he wouldn’t be back out in the session as there was more damage than initially thought.
Yesterday in FP1 it was the Maserati duo who were fastest with Guenther just getting into the 1:08s with a 1:08.946. Just after the halfway point today though Dennis beat that time with a 1:08.936 to take P1 for Andretti.
Heading into the last ten minutes, Vergne was out of his car while the DS Penske team poked around the cockpit of his car, he wouldn’t end up making it back out of the garage. On track though, drivers continued to shave time off at the front and in the final five minutes Guenther was back on top with a 1:08.329 ahead of Sam Bird and Dennis while the top 9 were all in the 1:08s.
In the end no one could beat Guenther’s time so he once again topped the session though this time, instead of a 1-2 for Maserati, they bookended the pack. Dennis was P2 0.117 seconds off while Bird was P3 for Jaguar. Pascal Wehrlein took P4 for Porsche ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne.
Mitch Evans took P6 in the other Jaguar while Antonio Felix da Costa, in the other Porsche, was the last within half a second of Guenther’s time. Nissan’s Sacha Fenestraz took P8 while Nico Mueller and Dan Ticktum in P9 and P10 set exactly the same time, a 1:08.920.
