Buemi goes fastest as Formula E test ends

Sebastien Buemi continued to set the pace on the fourth day of official Formula E testing at Donington Park on Thursday.

The e.dams driver, who was fastest on day three, improved to 1m31.083s to set a new category benchmark.

Abt's Lucas di Grassi had bettered Buemi's previous fastest time with a 1m31.282s run in the morning session, but was pushed back to second by the ex-F1 driver's later effort.

Buemi, who has now topped three of the four days of Formula E testing so far, said: "This morning we concentrated on race pace, putting in lots of laps and finding the best balance with the temperatures of the tyres and battery.

"We continued to focus on race pace in the afternoon, as well as qualifying runs. Credit again has to go to the team for giving me such a good car and the confidence to push and we'll now see how we can improve for the next one."

Di Grassi, who ended up almost 0.4s clear of China Racing's Jerome d'Ambrosio, believes the test is more important for understanding the car's systems, rather than going for outright pace.

"We are making good progress every test and every time I get in the car," said di Grassi.

"We understand the car a little better but it's difficult to do a lot of representative work at Donington compared to some of the circuits we will race on throughout the season.

"The most important thing is to learn about the battery, the motor and tyre pressures but not necessarily fine tuning set-up at this track."

Andretti Autosport's Scott Speed and Virgin Racing's Sam Bird were the only other drivers under 1m32s, while ex-F1 drivers Nick Heidfeld (Venturi), Jarno Trulli (Trulli) and Bruno Senna (Mahindra) rounded out the top 10.

Indian Karun Chandhok ended the test 13th, 1.9 seconds off the fastest time.

The fifth and final test is scheduled to take place on August 19.

Pos  Driver             Team      Time       Gap      Laps
 1.  Sebastien Buemi    e.dams    1m31.083s           44
 2.  Lucas di Grassi    Abt       1m31.282s  +0.199s  54
 3.  Jerome d'Ambrosio  China     1m31.651s  +0.568s  39
 4.  Scott Speed        Andretti  1m31.810s  +0.727s  46
 5.  Sam Bird           Virgin    1m31.895s  +0.812s  51
 6.  Daniel Abt         Abt       1m32.080s  +0.997s  57
 7.  Nicolas Prost      e.dams    1m32.124s  +1.041s  48
 8.  Nick Heidfeld      Venturi   1m32.126s  +1.043s  78
 9.  Jarno Trulli       Trulli    1m32.479s  +1.396s  38
10.  Bruno Senna        Mahindra  1m32.506s  +1.423s  51
11.  Franck Montagny    Andretti  1m32.512s  +1.429s  50
12.  Jaime Alguersuari  Virgin    1m32.583s  +1.500s  28
13.  Karun Chandhok     Mahindra  1m33.019s  +1.936s  46
14.  Oriol Servia       Dragon    1m33.083s  +2.000s  46
15.  Juan Manuel Lopez  China     1m33.425s  +2.342s  46
16.  Michela Cerruti    Trulli    1m33.544s  +2.461s  31
17.  Mike Conway        Dragon    1m33.692s  +2.609s  31
18.  Katherine Legge    Aguri     1m33.778s  +2.695s  17
19.  Fabio Leimer       Aguri     1m38.988s  +7.905s  39