Formula E

Formula E in Shanghai: 3rd free practice cancelled after a few minutes due to rain

Timo Pape

Timo Pape

Levi Erb / Spacesuit Media

Formula E's third free practice session in Shanghai had to be red-flagged after just a few minutes. The reason for this was heavy rainfall, which made driving almost impossible. During the few minutes with the green flag, there had been a number of off-road incidents, which fortunately ended without any serious consequences. In any case, the session had already been brought forward in order to avoid the rain as much as possible.

For many fans, the third free practice session began with a black screen - no livestream was available. "We are currently experiencing a few technical problems with the stream. We are working on fixing this quickly. Sorry for the inconvenience", Formula E finally said in the YouTube chat of the livestream after around ten minutes. The Discovery Plus platform was the only place to see moving images. We were able to see that it was still raining heavily in Shanghai at the start of the session. We can only speculate as to whether the problems with the transmission had anything to do with the weather.

The session, which had only been scheduled for 30 minutes anyway, was interrupted after just over seven minutes with a red flag. The drivers were sliding on the straights themselves due to aquaplaning and gave race director Marek Hanaczewski the feedback that a regular session was not possible.

At this point, all the drivers except the two Mahindra riders had completed at least one lap, which could possibly serve as the basis for the starting grid in the event of another qualifying cancellation (as in Tokyo). However, McLaren team boss Ian James suggested that a representative session would be necessary for this and that the 2nd free practice session should therefore count.

Multiple cars in the gravel

In the few minutes of free running, Nick Cassidy in the Jaguar was the fastest. Behind him were Jean-Eric Vergne, Robin Frijns, Mitch Evans and Antonio Felix da Costa. In addition to the two Mahindra drivers, the two Kiro drivers were also unable to set a good lap time and were only 19th and 20th, with Dan Ticktum being one of the drivers who drove through the gravel. Maximilian Günther, Sebastien Buemi and Oliver Rowland suffered the same fate. However, noone of the drivers crashed.

Time initially continued to run and eventually ran out. The session was not recorded for the time being. At 1:25 a.m. (CEST), the race director announced that the session would be extended until 2 a.m. (CEST). The clock was reset to 30 minutes. However, most drivers and teams did not have much hope that it would continue. And so it was: at 1.44am (CEST), the race director finally decided that the session would not be resumed.

This meant that qualifying started on Sunday with just a few minutes of track time. This had also been brought forward and is scheduled for 3:00 a.m. (CEST). As always, e-Formula.news will be following the sessions for you in the Formula E live ticker.

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