Rowland leads Nissan 1-2 in first Jeddah E-Prix practice

Oliver Rowland led Norman Nato in a Nissan one-two in the first practice of the Jeddah E-Prix.

Rowland, the winner last time out in Mexico City, first moved to the top of the timesheets with 15 minutes of the session remaining, then improved to a 1m15.849s. The Briton’s pace-setting time was 0.131s quicker than his teammate, who moved up the times at the checkered flag.

Edoardo Mortara was third quickest, just 0.089s adrift of Nato, while NEOM McLaren’s Sam Bird ensured that there were three Nissan-powered cars in the top four, beating Cupra Kiro’s Dan Ticktum who finished the session fifth.

Pascal Wehrlein led a trio of past champions in sixth, ahead of DS Penske’s Stoffel Vandoorne and his TAG Heuer Porsche teammate, current points leader Antonio Felix da Costa, with Maximilian Guenther ninth in the second DS Penske, and Mitch Evans rounding out the top 10 for Jaguar TCS Racing after battling throttle issues early in the session. His teammate Nick Cassidy had problems of his own, having complained of drivability issues, and could only muster the 11th-quickest time, a late flurry of fast laps dropping him down the order after he cracked the top 10 in the final six minutes.

Andretti’s Nico Mueller and Jake Dennis sandwiched Kiro’s David Beckmann in 12th and 14th respectively, with Nyck de Vries 15th in the second Mahindra, Jake Hughes 16th, Robin Frijns 17th, Jean-Eric Vergne 19th, and Zane Maloney in 20th. Lucas di Grassi and Taylor Barnard completed the field.

All drivers completed their fastest times with the full complement of 350kW and four-wheel-drive.

Second practice will take place on Friday at 7:20 ET, and will be the only session of the weekend to take place in daylight hours.