» FE: Bird tops shortened Miami practice

Virgin Racing’s Sam Bird has topped practice at the Miami ePrix, after almost three hours of delays this morning.

Last-minute completion of track works meant that practice at the event – initially two sessions of 45 and 30 minutes each starting at 8:15am local time – was delayed at least three times and eventually reduced to a single 30 minute run from at 11am.

Once the session finally began, drivers were faced with a busy track as each competitor tried to maximise the limited time available on the bumpy and dusty circuit. Early pace was set by Stéphane Sarrazin with a 1:10.772 lap, before being jumped by Sébastien Buemi.

As the track was scrubbed clean with additional running, lap times continued to fall dramatically, and eventually it was Bird’s 1:06.588 lap that ended at the top of the time sheets, ahead of Karun Chandhok (+0.101) and championship leader Lucas di Grassi (+0.321). Also of note were series debutants Scott Speed in fourth place (+0.677) and Vitantonio Liuzzi in 8th (+1.193).

The only notable incident of the session occurred when a brake lock-up from Nick Heidfeld saw the Venturi driver head down an escape road, and whilst no damage was done to the car, he was – at least temporarily – unable to re-join the circuit.

The first of four qualifying groups (featuring Loïc Duval, Nicolas Prost, Buemi, Jarno Trulli and Heidfeld) are still due to hit the track at the originally-scheduled time of 12:00 local, leaving minimal time for the teams to analyse data from practice and make changes to the cars.

Group two comprises Bird, Chandhok, Speed, di Grassi and Daniel Abt, ahead of the third group of Liuzzi, Sarrazin, Jean-Éric Vergne, Charles Pic and Nelson Piquet Jr, with Jaime Alguersuari, Jérôme d’Ambrosio, Bruno Senna, António Félix da Costa and Salvador Durán making up the fourth group to run.

Given the limited track running so far, it is likely that the later groups will benefit from a cleaner track with more rubber laid down by the earlier cars.

2015 Formula E Miami e-Prix – Practice Results:

	Driver	Team / Entry	Time	Gap
1.	Sam Bird	Virgin Racing Formula E Team	1:06.558
2.	Karun Chandhok	Mahindra Racing Formula E Team	1:06.689	+ 0.101
3.	Lucas di Grassi	Audi Sport ABT Formula E Team	1:06.909	+ 0.321
4.	Scott Speed	Andretti Autosport Formula E Team	1:07.265	+ 0.677
5.	Daniel Abt	Audi Sport ABT Formula E Team	1:07.414	+ 0.821
6.	Nick Heidfeld	VENTURI Formula E Team	1:07.446	+ 0.858
7.	Nicolas Prost	Team e.dams Renault	1:07.570	+ 0.982
8.	Vitantonio Liuzzi	Trulli Formula E Team	1:07.781	+ 1.193
9.	Stéphane Sarrazin	VENTURI Formula E Team	1:07.892	+ 1.304
10.	Jean-Éric Vergne	Andretti Autosport Formula E Team	1:07.980	+ 1.392
11.	Bruno Senna	Mahindra Racing Formula E Team	1:08.254	+ 1.666
12.	Jérôme d’Ambrosio	Dragon Racing Formula E Team	1:08.495	+ 1.907
13.	Sébastien Buemi	Team e.dams Renault	1:08.571	+ 1.983
14.	Charles Pic	China Racing Formula E Team	1:08.625	+ 2.037
15.	Jaime Alguersuari	Virgin Racing Formula E Team	1:08.932	+ 2.344
16.	Nelson Piquet Jr	China Racing Formula E Team	1:09.211	+ 2.623
17.	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing Formula E Team	1:09.239	+ 2.651
18.	Salvador Durán	Amlin Aguri	1:09.357	+ 2.796
19.	Jarno Trulli	Trulli Formula E Team	1:09.837	+ 3.249
20.	António Félix da Costa	Amlin Aguri	1:10.156	+ 3.568