Robin Frijns ended a compromised opening practice session in Ad Diriayh fastest for Envision Virgin Racing which saw two red flags and double waved yellows.
The Dutchman was one of the last drivers to cross the line and managed to set his fastest lap time of a 1:16.137, which was 1.2 seconds faster than Nico Muller who ended the session second fastest for Dragon Racing.
But Frijns set his lap time after the double waved yellow flags were brought in after Pascal Wehrelin got his Mahindra car going after being stopped on track, which explains the time discrepancy between Frijns and Muller.
Sam Bird in the second of the Envision Virgin Racing cars finished the session in third with a lap time of a 1:17.561. Stoffel Vandoorne in the Mercedes ended the session in fourth while Sebastien Buemi finished fifth in his Nissan.
Antonio Felix Da Costa finished sixth fastest in his first session for Techeetah, while his teammate and double Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne finished in 17th.
Daniel Abt ended the session in eighth for Audi, while Nyck De Vries ended the session ninth in the second Mercedes. Lucas Di Grassi rounded out the top ten for Audi.
During the session, drivers struggled for a lack of grip in the first session of the day. The lack of grip caught out the NIO driver of MA Qing Hua who lost the back end of his car and hit the wall damaging his front wing and the rear suspension, which brought out the first red flag of the session.
The second red flag was brought out by Brendon Hartley after the Kiwi driver ran over a drain cover while attempting to pass a Porsche. The Dragon Racing driver lost the rear end and kissed the barrier damaging his left-rear suspension.
Due to the stoppages and yellow flags, we are still nowhere closer to finding out who will be on pole for the first Saudia Arabian E-Prix.