Long Beach ePrix: Abt shocks by beating Buemi in second practice

Abt, who has promised to sing a Taylor Swift song naked on the grid if he wins a race, lapped the track in 56.778s – 0.174s faster than session one pacesetter Buemi’s Renault e.dams machine.

The strong showing by both Abt Audi cars vindicated Alain Prost’s pre-session statement that the previously-dominant Renaults “will have a little bit of pressure this weekend, I think.”

Story of the session

In the half-hour practice, the last running ahead of qualifying, there was a rush of full-power 200kW laptimes early on.

Buemi set a benchmark 58.903s at 170kW before Virgin's Jean-Eric Vergne went P1 on 58.099s on 200kW.

Mahindra's Nick Heidfeld very briefly topped the times before then Stephane Sarrazin lapped in 57.408s. Teammate Mike Conway jumped up to P2 to make it a Venturi 1-2, before clipping the wall at Turn 5.

Nico Prost jumped to the top of the times with 12 minutes remaining on a 57.352s qualifying sim with his Renault e.dams, before teammate Buemi regained his stranglehold on proceedings with 56.952s.

Di Grassi grabbed second position, just 0.092s off Buemi’s best time.

Abt then set P1 on 56.778s with 7 minutes remaining, a time nobody was able to beat.

Behind Buemi and di Grassi, Antonio Felix da Costa was fourth for Team Aguri from Robin Frijns, Sam Bird and Prost.

Salvador Duran, Vergne and Frijns (twice) went down T1 escape road, forced to make spin turns, while Heidfeld managed to swerve between the tyres after overshooting.

FP2 Results:

Pos.	Driver	Team	Time	Gap	Laps
1	Daniel Abt	ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport	56.778		18
2	Sebastien Buemi	Renault e.Dams	56.952	0.174	22
3	Lucas di Grassi	ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport	57.044	0.266	18
4	Antonio Felix da Costa	Team Aguri	57.155	0.377	18
5	Robin Frijns	Andretti Formula E Team	57.161	0.383	19
6	Sam Bird	DS Virgin Racing Formula E Team	57.212	0.434	19
7	Nicolas Prost	Renault e.Dams	57.259	0.481	23
8	Bruno Senna	Mahindra Racing Formula E Team	57.377	0.599	22
9	Stephane Sarrazin	Venturi Formula E Team	57.408	0.63	19
10	Jerome d'Ambrosio	Dragon Racing Formula E Team	57.457	0.679	19
11	Simona de Silvestro	Andretti Formula E Team	57.682	0.904	22
12	Loic Duval	Dragon Racing Formula E Team	57.757	0.979	21
13	Nelson Piquet Jr.	NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team	57.802	1.024	20
14	Mike Conway	Venturi Formula E Team	57.862	1.084	16
15	Nick Heidfeld	Mahindra Racing Formula E Team	57.899	1.121	14
16	Jean Eric Vergne	DS Virgin Racing Formula E Team	58.099	1.321	16
17	Oliver Turvey	NEXTEV TCR Formula E Team	58.297	1.519	20
18	Salvador Duran	Team Aguri	59.214	2.436	18