Mitch Evans topped FP2 at the Tokyo E-Prix as Jaguar-powered cars completed a clean sweep of practice sessions in the manufacturer’s 100th race weekend.
After customer entrant Envision Racing paced first practice on Friday with Robin Frijns, Jaguar TCS Racing driver Evans set a best time of 1m19.339s on Saturday morning. His final lap was 0.061s quicker than Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, who had moved to the fore in the final five minutes, with Maximillian Guenther a further 0.027s back for Maserati MSG Racing.
TAG Heuer Porsche once again was the only team and manufacturer to get two cars into the top five with Pascal Wehrlein fourth – just 0.001s off third having gone fastest at the halfway point in the session – and Antonio Felix da Costa fifth.
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Nick Cassidy was sixth in the other factory Jaguar, with the top six all covered by a mere 0.110s. Andretti’s Norman Nato was seventh quickest ahead of Mahindra’s Edoardo Mortara, DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne, and Jake Dennis in the second Andretti.
Stoffell Vandoorne was 11th quickest, ahead of Frijns. His Envision teammate Sebastien Buemi was 14th quickest, with Abt Cupra’s Nico Mueller splitting the pair. The other Abt Cupra of Lucas di Grassi was 15th after brushing the wall at Turn 12. The resulting debris brought out the only red flag of the session around halfway through.
NEOM McLaren’s Jake Hughes was 16th quickest, ahead of Sacha Fenestraz (Nissan) and Nyck de Vries (Mahindra), another driver to lose bodywork after a brush with a wall. Sergio Sette Camara (ERT), Jehan Daruvala (Maserati), Sam Bird (McLaren) and Dan Ticktum (ERT) completed the field.