Free Practice 2: Vergne tops second practice in Marrakesh with teammate da Costa in tow

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Free Practice 2: Vergne tops second practice in Marrakesh with teammate da Costa in tow

Free Practice 2: Vergne tops second practice in Marrakesh with teammate da Costa in tow

DS TECHEETAH pair Jean-Eric Vergne and Antonio Felix da Costa set the benchmark in Free Practice two, making the best of cooler morning conditions in both Group and Duels trim.

Track temperatures were well below those seen during Free Practice 1. Temperatures will climb slightly come qualifying at 09:40 once the morning cloud burns off but will be far higher come the race at 17:00 - meaning everything teams learn here will have that caveat applied. 

YOUR VOTE COUNTS! Give your favourite driver a power-boost with FANBOOST

Seven minutes into the session, Alexander Sims' first hotlap ended in the wall at Turn 8 as the Mahindra Racing driver locked up and slipped straight on into the tyre barriers. After that stoppage, drivers got on with the 220kW Group qualifying simulation runs to try and hone their setups. It looked like the DS TECHEETAHs had made the best of it with da Costa heading Vergne from di Grassi and de Vries.

RESULTS: The full FP2 classification

Jaguar TCS Racing's Mitch Evans was just 0.033s back from da Costa, with the Portuguese a tenth of a second shy of his teammate. Oliver Turvey (NIO 333) impressed on the way to fourth, Porsche's Pascal Wehrlein matched his teammates fifth spot from FP1 and Nissan e.dams' Sebastien Buemi rounded sixth.

Standings leader Stoffel Vandoorne found himself down in 15th spot, 0.8 seconds off the pace having crossed the line 0.4 seconds shy of Mortara's benchmark in Free Practice 1.

More than just lap times

Formula E returns to the Circuit International Automobile Moulay El Hassan after an hiatus of one season and two years. Data will be outmoded and the circuit's surface may well have changed here and there in the interim so teams will be making use of Free Practice to learn and relearn as much as they can with the cars now running 20kW more peak power.

WAYS TO WATCH: Where and how to watch every minute of Season 8

Lap times are far from the only focus. Drivers and engineers will be working flat out to understand things like energy management profiles and setup ahead of qualifying and the race later in the day - making sure everything tallies with their simulation work.

On top of energy management, teams work through everything from their systems, setups, FANBOOST and ATTACK MODE deployments and launches throughout practice to make sure they're on-point when it counts.

Coverage of qualifying ahead of the 2022 Marrakesh E-Prix follows at 09:40 and the race itself at 17:00. In the meantime, catch up with the full preview.