Sam Bird sets the pace in Practice 1 in Santiago

Sam Bird

After the 2020 Antofagasta Minerals Santiago E-Prix got underway with the first Practice session of the day, it was last season's race winner and Envision Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird who posted the fastest lap time of the morning (1:04.914) – over six seconds faster than the lap record set last year. In second, was DS Techeetah's Antonio Felix da Costa (1:05.064) with Rokit Venturi Racing's Edoardo Mortara in third (1:05.096).

Within the first few laps, 23 drivers were already posting lap times over one second faster than the record set by Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler's Daniel Abt (1:11.263) last year, partly due to the new track layout. By the end of the session, 18 drivers finished within a second of each other, hinting at another close race later today in Santiago.

Following the first race at Parque O'Higgins last season, the track layout has been modified with the most notable change being the removal of the hairpin on the arc between Turn 7 and 9. With the new layout, expect to see drivers take on one of the fastest corners in Formula E history here in Santiago.

Practice 1 Results

Pos	No.	Driver	Team	Time	Behind	Gap
1	2	S. Bird	Envision Virgin Racing	1:04.914	0.000	0.000
2	13	A. Da Costa	Ds Techeetah	1:05.064	0.150	0.150
3	48	E. Mortara	Rokit Venturi Racing	1:05.096	0.182	0.032
4	11	L. Di Grassi	Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team	1:05.203	0.289	0.107
5	7	N. Muller	Geox Dragon	1:05.252	0.338	0.049
6	64	J. D'ambrosio	Mahindra Racing	1:05.314	0.400	0.062
7	27	A. Sims	BMW I Andretti Motorsport	1:05.388	0.474	0.074
8	23	S. Buemi	Nissan E.Dams	1:05.397	0.483	0.009
9	94	P. Wehrlein	Mahindra Racing	1:05.429	0.515	0.032
10	36	A. Lotterer	Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	1:05.452	0.538	0.023
11	51	J. Calado	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	1:05.472	0.558	0.020
12	5	S. Vandoorne	Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team	1:05.506	0.592	0.034
13	20	M. Evans	Panasonic Jaguar Racing	1:05.513	0.599	0.007
14	22	O. Rowland	Nissan E.Dams	1:05.569	0.655	0.056
15	66	D. Abt	Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler Formula E Team	1:05.632	0.718	0.063
16	25	J. Vergne	Ds Techeetah	1:05.659	0.745	0.027
17	28	M. GÃ¼nther	BMW I Andretti Motorsport	1:05.706	0.792	0.047
18	17	N. De Vries	Mercedes-Benz EQ Formula E Team	1:05.783	0.869	0.077
19	3	O. Turvey	Nio 333 Fe Team	1:06.076	1.162	0.293
20	4	R. Frijns	Envision Virgin Racing	1:06.121	1.207	0.045
21	19	F. Massa	Rokit Venturi Racing	1:06.193	1.279	0.072
22	6	B. Hartley	Geox Dragon	1:06.508	1.594	0.315
23	18	N. Jani	Tag Heuer Porsche Formula E Team	1:06.608	1.694	0.100
24	33	Ma Qinghua	Nio 333 Fe Team	1:07.037	2.123	0.429