Mortara fastest in disrupted opening practice in Cape Town

Edoardo Mortara set the pace in the first practice session ahead of the inaugural Cape Town E-Prix.

The Swiss set a 1m09.700s to go fastest for Maserati in what was an interrupted practice session.

The session was red-flagged due to a big accident for Sebastien Buemi at Turn 9 on what was his fourth lap of the session.

The Swiss driver appeared to have just turned in slightly late for the corner, got on the dirt and hit the wall hard, doing significant damage to the right-hand side of the car, with enough force to rip the right-rear wheel off the Envision Racing entry.

The second red flag was caused by Kelvin Van der Linde in the Abt after he stopped on track at the exit of T7

Sam Bird was second quickest for Jaguar Racing ahead of Sascha Fenestrazr in the Nissan entry.

Antonio Felix Da Costa was fourth fastest for Porsche ahead of Dan Ticktum in the NIO 333, and Rene Rast in the McLaren.

Maximillian Guenther was seventh fastest in the other Maserati, ahead of Sergio Sette Camara in the other NIO 333 entry.

The top-10 was rounded out by Nissan’s Norman Nato, and Mitch Evans in the other Jaguar.

Lucas di Grassi also had a mechanical issue during the session. He suffered a rear suspension failure in his Mahindra although he was able to park the car off the track at the chicane.