Edoardo Mortara has ended the first practice session for the Mexico E-Prix fastest for Venturi which was shorted by ten minutes due to a crash by Daniel Abt at Turn 9.
Abt was on a 250kW lap when he crashed at Turn 9 and smashing the front of the car into the wall. It was unclear from the pictures on the TV monitors the amount of damage that has been sustained to the car.
Therefore, Mortara ended the session fastest on a damp track, setting a 1:09.273, while using Attack Mode. The track condition made it tough for the drivers in the morning session, as the stadium section was still wet, which made several drivers run wide on their flying laps.
Pascal Wehrlein ended the session second fastest with a lap time of a 1:09.620, with his teammate Jerome D’Ambrosio in the second Mahindra finishing the session in third.
The Mahindra drivers will start the race from the back of the grid after receiving a 40 place grid penalty for changing a component in the gearbox.
Felipe Massa ended the session fourth in the second of the Venturi cars, while Stoffel Vandoorne ended the session fifth for Mercedes.
Abt’s teammate Lucas DI Grassi finished the session in sixth place, with Sebastien Buemi in seventh for Nissan.
Nico Muller ended the session in eighth for Dragon, with Andre Lotterer and Antonio Felix Da Costa rounding out the top ten.
The second free practice session, which is only half an hour, will be critical for the teams, as they didn’t learn a lot with the track being damp and the session being shortened.