Rowland sets the pace early on in Sanya

Oliver Rowland was the quickest for Nissan e.dams in the first free practice session for the Sanya E-Prix.

The British driver was one of many who set a lap with the full 250kw of power on a hot and humid morning.

The pair of BMW i Andretti Motorsport entries were next with Antonio Felix da Costa just edging out Alexander Sims, as Lucas di Grassi was fourth fastest for Audi Sport Abt Schaeffler.

Sebastien Buemi rounded out the top five in the second Nissan entry ahead of Envision Virgin Racing’s Robin Frijns, who had a very lurid run through the last couple of corners, and DS Techeetah’s Jean-Eric Vergne, who had been struggling during the first part of the session with a plethora of lock-ups.

Jerome d’Ambrosio was eighth fastest for Mahindra, just ahead of the Mitch Evans for Jaguar and Daniel Abt rounded out the top ten for Audi.

Stoffel Vandoorne was 11th for HWA ahead of Edo Mortara in the Venturi and the Mahindra Racing entry for Pascal Wehrlein.

Garry Paffett was 14th quickest for HWA and behind him was Sam Bird in the second of the Envision Virgin Racing entries and Felipe Nasr was 16th for Dragon.

Oliver Turvey was 17th for NIO ahead of Nelson Piquet Jr. for Jaguar and Felipe Massa in the second of the Venturi entries.

Jose Maria Lopez rounded out the top 20 in the second of the Dragon entries, ahead of Tom Dillmann for NIO and Andre Lotterer rounded out the field for DS Techeetah.

The second free practice session will take place at 9:35am local time.