Envision Virgin Racing driver Robin Frijns went quickest in the closing stages of morning practice session of Diriyah E-Prix to kick off the 2019-20 Formula E Championship season in Saudi Arabia.
The Dutchman put in a time of 1:16.137s to top the timesheets in a heavily red flag-interrupted session that saw several cars grounding to a halt.
The first red flag period came to the courtesy of Ma Qing Hua, who crashed his NIO Sport 004, getting damage on front and rear on his out lap.
The second red flag activation was brought out by Brendon Hartley in GEOX Dragon who crashed left-rear tyre of his car after running over asphalt marbles on turns 2 and 3. The New Zealander didn't go out for the rest of the session, ending his first session in Formula E in 22nd place.
The second fastest time was posted by Hartley's teammate Nico Mueller, who was just 1.264s behind the Audi of Frijns' on full power.
The other Envision Virgin car of Sam Bird placed third, ahead of Stoffel Vandoorne's Mercedes.
Sebastien Buemi completed the top 5 for Nissan edams while Antonio Felix da Costa was quicker than his new teammate in 6th place, in a session that didn't have representative laptimes.
Mitch Evans made it to seventh place, while Daniel Abt, Nyck de Vries and Lucas di Grassi completed the top 10.
Other than red flags, several yellow flags and full-course yellow cautions were also triggered by Pascal Wehrlein, whose car stopped three times during the session before continuing on re-booting the car. The German driver then pitted as the team searches the problem before qualifying and race kick off later today.
A second Free Practice session will begin at 9:00 am local time.
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