New Zealand’s Nick Cassidy ended FP3 quickest, narrowly in front of BMW i Andretti’s Maximillian Günther and half a second ahead of yesterday’s pole sitter Stoffel Vandoorne.
The only Rome E-Prix practice session of the day got underway with changeable conditions at the Circuito Cittadino dell’EUR. A 70% chance of rain is likely to continue heading into qualifying and after losing most of FP2 yesterday, drivers were eager to get out on track.
NIO 333’s Oliver Turvey returned to the track, after a start line collision with Jean-Éric Vergne and Jake Dennis during FP1 destroyed his car and forced him to miss yesterday’s race.
Vandoorne in the Mercedes EQ initially topped the timing sheets with a 1:49.662. He will be looking to make amends after missing out on a solid haul of points when he was caught up in an incident with his team-mate Nyck de Vries.
This was then beaten by Günther, who put in a 1:40.612, one of only a handful of drivers to get a full-powered lap during FP3.
Nevertheless, the session was not straight forward for the drivers, with many of them narrowly avoiding contact with the TechPro barriers.
Edoardo Mortara had a heavy front left lockup at Turn 4, whilst Mahindra’s Alexander Lynn paid a trip to the barriers at the chicane and brought out the yellow flags. Thankfully, the Brit managed to make it back to the pitlane.
With 20 minutes left on the clock, rookie driver Cassidy went quickest for Envision Virgin Racing with a 1:40.107, four thousandths up on Günther’s time.
Sérgio Sette Câmara closed the session in fourth but is under investigation for power overuse. He was just ahead of Britain’s Oliver Rowland and Jake Dennis.
Yesterday’s race winner Vergne was seventh quickest, ahead of the second Nissan e.Dams of Sébastien Buemi and Mortara. The ROKiT Venturi was over a second down on the Envision Virgin’s session-topping time.
André Lotterer posted the tenth fastest time, just ahead of Nico Müller, Robin Frijns and Lynn. Pascal Wehrlein was 14th on the timing sheets, ahead of Sam Bird who had substantial pace in the Jaguar during yesterday’s race.
Lucas Di Grassi finished in 16th ahead of António Félix da Costa, de Vries and the second ROKiT Venturi of Norman Nato.
Audi Sport ABT Schaeffler’s René Rast ended up in 20th, ahead of Alexander Sims and Mitch Evans. The NIO 333’s of Tom Blomqvist and Turvey rounded out the timing sheets, with Turvey only venturing out for a few exploratory laps.
