Formula E in Monaco: Nico Müller dominates the 3rd free practice session on the Mediterranean coast

Formula E kicked off the third free practice session in Monaco at 08:30 on Sunday morning. After the unusual schedule of the previous days, race Sunday in the Principality is now back to normal: The drivers and teams only had a single session in the morning to fine-tune their cars. The next item on the programme is the important qualifying session for the second E-Prix of the weekend.

When the pit lights turned green, the street circuit was immediately buzzing with activity, as none of the drivers wanted to waste valuable practice time. Only Mitch Evans - the runner-up in Saturday's race - remained in the background at the start of the session and stayed in the pits for the time being.

On the still "green" tarmac, the drivers took it slow in the early stages. As the track had noticeably lost grip overnight, the first lap times were still well down on the previous day. However, the pace picked up noticeably after just under ten minutes: Nico Müller set the first benchmark time with a lap time of 1:29.873 minutes, which was immediately undercut by Felipe Drugovich and Sebastien Buemi.

With increasing rubber wear on the racing line, the circuit became faster from lap to lap. At the halfway point of the session, Dan Ticktum finally took the lead in the classification. His best time of 1:27.064 minutes was at this point only exactly four tenths of a second behind Nyck de Vries' Saturday best. The Mahindra rider had set the absolute benchmark of the previous practice sessions with a time of 1:26.664 minutes in Saturday's 2nd free practice session.

Calm before the final phase

After the first 20 minutes, calm returned to the street circuit for a while. With a few exceptions, the field headed for the pit lane to prepare for the final phase. The Mahindra drivers, who had performed strongly at the weekend, took advantage of the apparent silence for an intra-team duel. Edoardo Mortara and Nyck de Vries undercut each other at regular intervals and were the first to break the sound barrier of 1:26 minutes on Sunday morning. Even five minutes before the chequered flag fell, the competition had no answer to the pace of the two Mahindra racers.

It was not until two minutes before the end of the session that the Mahindra double lead was broken by the competition. Nico Müller went on the attack and squeezed the last out of his Porsche: with a time of 1:26.491 minutes, the Swiss set a new absolute weekend best time on the tarmac. He even beat Dan Ticktum's previous best time (1:26.551 minutes), which the Brit had set the day before in the first qualifying session. He was followed by Mortara, Günther, Barnard and Evans in the Top 5 of the first session of the day.

Qualifying for the second Monaco E-Prix of the weekend starts at 10:40 am (CEST).