until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
BMW Andretti driver Maximilian Guenther set the fastest time of the official 2020-21 pre-season Formula E test to lead the way in Valencia on the final day of action.
Tuesday’s running featured slightly quicker times and more favourable track conditions but teams continued to focus on their software validations ahead of the first rounds in Santiago next month.
Most drivers did complete full 250kW qualifying simulation runs but few did genuine long-run stints consistently during the day.
Guenther peaked on a 1m11.760s lap in the new BMW iFE.21 to lead Dragon Penske Autosport’s Sergio Sette Camara by just 0.036s. This time was 0.2s quicker than Alex Lynn’s Sunday effort which was the previous benchmark.
Sette Camara, who signed for Dragon last month, had earlier caused the only stoppage of the day when he beached his Penske EV-5 in the gravel at turn nine.
The Brazilian drivers team-mate Nico Mueller placed third, just 0.05s adrift, while reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa was fourth in last season’s spec DS Techeetah entry after leading most of the day from a time set in the cooler morning conditions.
Mitch Evans was fifth as he continued to miles on the new Jaguar which had a complete rear-end change on Saturday after he suffered a technical issue that triggered an accident.
Pascal Wehrlein completed the top six for Porsche which was clearly the fastest car on the long main straight, clocking 250kph. This was a considerable advantage over BMW which was registered as second fastest on 244kph.
Wehrlein was one of several drivers who got ’15-minute time out penalties’ for consistent breaking of track limits on the 1.949-mile circuit.
Nissan e.dams driver Oliver Rowland took seventh with the Berlin winner heading Jean-Eric Vergne (DS Techeetah), Oliver Turvey (NIO333) and Norman Nato to round out the top ten in the final six hours of running.
NIO333 racked up the most laps over the duration of the three day test as its completed 531. This was five more than Mahindra Racing, while Jaguar undertook the fewest laps on 385.
With just 0.242s covering the fastest ten and 0.761s the entire field, Formula E is expected to provide its closest-ever season of action in 2021.
