The class of Season 9 took to the Tempelhof Airport Street Circuit for the first time on a warm Friday evening ahead of Saturday’s opening race of the weekend.
11 minutes into the session, Edoardo Mortara, ended up in the wall after what appeared to be a technical issue with the brakes. The resulting damage was a broken front nose but he was able to get moving again and continue back around to the pits.
His team-mate Maxmillian Guenter then drifted sideways through the turn two/three section but was able to correct his car and continue on his lap.
Jake Dennis was the pace sitter as the session ticked into its final ten minutes, 0.247 seconds ahead of Envision Racing’s Sébastien Buemi before Maximillian Günther went second fastest by only 0.003 seconds.
ABT Cupra’s Robin Frijns lost the rear of his car down at the hairpin at turn nine and spun around, with Alan McNish in the commentary box jokingly claiming that he was looking for a slot on Top Gear.
Jaguar TCS’s Mitch Evans then moved up to third place, ahead of NEOM McLaren’s René Rast and Buemi.
Current World Champion, Stoffel Vandoorne, then moved up to third place, 0.116 seconds behind Dennis out front. Sam Bird would then set a time only 0.007 seconds slower than Vandoorne to claim fourth place on the leaderboard.
As the session came to a close, Dennis remained in the lead, with Guenther moving up to second place only 0.003 seconds behind the Avalanche Andretti driver.
Vandoorne set a late flying lap to end the session on top, 0.085 seconds ahead of Dennis, who finished in second.
Down the bottom of the leaderboard, it was a tricky day of Nissan’s Oliver Rowland, who was the only driver over a second slower than the leader.
Here is how the top ten finished at the end of Free Practice One in Berlin: