Formula E season opener in Sao Paulo: Oliver Rowland & Norman Nato let Nissan celebrate in 1st free practice

Oliver Rowland was the fastest in the first free practice session of the new Formula E season in Sao Paulo. The Brit beat the previous track record by a remarkable 1.3 seconds thanks to new all-wheel drive technology. Norman Nato finished second, rounding off a perfect start for the Nissan works team. Jake Dennis in the Andretti finished third. After Nico Müller suffered a puncture from a contact with a wall, Mitch Evans stopped on the track shortly before the end.

The first official session of the new season began in sunshine and dry conditions after it had rained heavily on Thursday. As usual, race control called a full-course yellow practice at the start of FP1, but not many drivers were out on track at that point. An innovation in this eleventh Formula E season: free practice sessions now last 40 minutes instead of 30 - so the teams were not in as much of a hurry as usual. The first lap times came from the two Lola drivers and Nick Cassidy in the Jaguar.

In March, Mitch Evans had set a best time of 1:12.555 minutes in FP1. Lucas di Grassi was only a good seven tenths of a second off that time after his first attempts. Robin Frijns was the first driver to brake too late in turn 1 after just under ten minutes and had to take a shortcut through the chicane. Pascal Wehrlein did the same a little later, as did Jaguar rival Evans. After a quarter of the session, just half of the 22 drivers had set a lap time.

DS Penske and Mahindra in particular had not even left the pits at this point - were they already conserving their tyres for the rest of the weekend? After a good twelve minutes, Frijns ousted di Grassi from the lead. But his team-mate Sebastien Buemi was then slightly faster. After a quarter of an hour, Nico Müller suffered a tyre puncture as a result of contact with a wall and dragged himself back to the pits. Meanwhile, his Andretti predecessor Norman Nato set the interim best time for Nissan.

All-wheel drive shatters track record

Then came the world champion with full power: Pascal Wehrlein took the lead with the new all-wheel drive and a lead of almost two seconds! He broke the absolute track record from 2023 (1:11.496 minutes, Antonio Felix da Costa) by almost a second at the first attempt. Frijns was even faster a little later. Oliver Rowland, for his part, bumped his right front wheel slightly on the inside of a corner, but escaped without damage.

Too close for comfort ?

Oliver Rowland is finding the limits early on São Paulo ?#SaoPauloEPrix pic.twitter.com/cLNlYIBtqg

- Formula E (@FIAFormulaE) December 6, 2024

By the way: Formula E has finally managed to visualise the attack mode directly on the car: From now on, the side LEDs at the rear of the cars will light up pink at full power. The central LED strip above the halo and roll bar lights up bright blue, but is interrupted by flashing pink lights. However on track, little changed in the timesheets. After half an hour, Frijns was still leading ahead of Wehrlein and Felix da Costa. The final ten minutes of the session then began.

Now the times tumbled: First Evans set the fastest time, then Jake Dennis and again Nato. Edo Mortara and Taylor Barnard were also in the top five, with Rowland taking the lead in the second Nissan with a time of 1:10.162 minutes two minutes before the end. Di Grassi was also fast, but his lap time was cancelled. Evans then stopped on the track for a while and caused yellow flags. However, the "Kiwi" was able to restart under his own power and slowly drive back to the pits.

Time ran out and nothing changed at the front. Nissan thus took the 1-2 in the first practice session of the 2024/25 season! Dennis, Mortara and Barnard completed the top 5. The 2nd free practice will take place on Saturday at 11:30 am (CET). e-Formula.news will cover the session as usual with livestream and liveticker.

Results & lap times