Yahoo Autos Porsche’s da Costa leads first Berlin E-Prix practice
Antonio Felix da Costa topped the opening practice session for the Berlin E-Prix in what was an up and down session for the TAG Heuer Porsche team.
While da Costa’s 1m02.289s time on his 20th of 23 laps was enough to put him top by 0.128s, teammate and championship leader Pascal Wehlein stopped on his first lap and didn’t set a time. Porsche has yet to diagnose the issue, which brought out the only red flag of the session in the opening four minutes.
Overall, 18 of the 21 cars to set a time were covered by less than a second, with just 1.167s covering the field.
Sergio Sette Camara was a fine second for the unfancied ERT, with DS Penske’s Stoffel Vandoorne one of three Stellantis-powered cars in the top five in third, the others being the Maserati MSG Racing’s Maximiliam Guenther and Jehan Daruvala.
Nick Cassidy was the highest-placed Jaguar runner in sixth, Jean-Eric Vergne in the other DS Penske splitting Cassidy and his Jaguar TCS Racing teammate Mitch Evans.
Dan Ticktum made it two ERTs in the top 10 by finishing ninth, ahead of Envision Racing’s Joel Eriksson, who was the highest-placed of five stand-ins necessitated by the clash with the World Endurance Championship race at Spa-Francorchamps.
Title challengers Oliver Rowland and Jake Dennis, the reigning champion, were 11th and 12th for Nissan and Andretti respectively, ahead of Paul Aron, the second stand-in at Envision. Next were the NEOM McLaren duo of Jake Hughes and Taylor Barnard, filling in for the injured Sam Bird.
Norman Nato was 16th for Andretti ahead of Kelvin van der Linde for Abt Cupra, the Mahindras of Jordan King and Edorado Mortara, with Sacha Fenestraz and Lucas di Grassi completing the runners ahead of the stricken Wehrlein for Nissan and Abt Cupra, although neither completed their fastest laps running the full 350kW of power like everyone else.
