Formula E

Formula E in Monaco: Mitch Evans wins 3rd free practice, Zane Maloney & Robin Frijns crash

Timo Pape

Timo Pape

Shiv Gohil / Spacesuit Media

Jaguar driver Mitch Evans set the fastest time in Formula E's third free practice session in Monaco (1:26.614 minutes) to win the session. He was followed by Jake Dennis, Nyck de Vries, Pascal Wehrlein and Edo Mortara in the Top 5. After Robin Frijns and Zane Maloney caused a rear-end collision, the session was red-flagged following a technical incident involving Dan Ticktum.

On Sunday, as usual, only one free practice session took place during a double-header - this time, however, it was 40 minutes long. The skies over Monaco were overcast at the start of the session - rain showers during the course of the day seemed a distinct possibility. Antonio Felix da Costa led the timesheets after the first five minutes. His mechanics had rebuilt his Porsche in good time overnight after the survival cell had been damaged in his accident on Saturday.

While the first drops of rain were reported in the pit lane, Oliver Rowland radioed that he could still hear the strange noises in his Nissan that he had already reported at the start of the race on Saturday. "We replaced the parts. We are looking at it again, but it is strange", said Nissan team boss Tommaso Volpe a little later on TV World Signal. Rowland was also the main actor in the next scene: he braked too late in turn 1 and had to turn in the run-off area.

After 13 minutes, there was an accident: Zane Maloney was travelling fast and ran into the slow Robin Frijns in the swimming pool section. He was unable to get out of the way and crashed into the rear of the Envision car, damaging the front wing of his Lola. Race control briefly waved full-course yellow to clear the debris from the track. "We couldn't see the car on the radar - it just wasn't on our monitor", claimed Envision team boss Sylvain Filippi shortly afterwards.

"4.5 billion" error messages at Ticktum cause disruption

After a quarter of an hour came the first really fast laps - including one by Nick Cassidy (1:26.920 minutes). "That was good - compared to where we were yesterday", said the New Zealander on the radio. Taylor Barnard misjudged his braking at the exit of the tunnel and had to shorten the harbour chicane. Towards the halfway point of the session, front-runner Cassidy was followed by Max Günther, Norman Nato, Sam Bird and Oliver Rowland in the Top 5.

Dan Ticktum, who had won both practice sessions the previous day, missed the swimming pool chicane and drove hard over the kerbs. His car then reported "Crash" and came to a halt in the Rascasse corner. "I have four and a half billion error messages on my dash", Ticktum radioed, exasperated. "It looks like a serious problem. I could be out for qualifying!" Race control had to interrupt the session with the red flag. Track marshals then pushed the Kiro back into the pit lane.

With just under seven minutes remaining, the game finally resumed. As expected, most of the riders now tried attack mode. David Beckmann braked too late in turn 1, but Mitch Evans set the new fastest time - Jaguar had made clear progress with the car set-up overnight. Jake Dennis lined up behind the "Kiwi", followed by Nyck de Vries, Cassidy and Wehrlein. After the time was up, Pascal Wehrlein lined up in fourth place, with Edo Mortara in fifth.

So Evans won the 2nd free practice session and goes into qualifying with increased self-confidence. Qualifying on Sunday starts at 10:40 am (CEST). The race starts again at 3 pm. e-Formula.news will be reporting as usual in the Formula E live ticker.

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