Nick Cassidy in Free Practice at the Homestead Miami Speedway!

Credit: Oscar Lumley

New Zealander Nick Cassidy set the pace in the opening practice session of the weekend, on Friday, to top the times of Free Practice 1 at the Homestead Miami Speedway.

Cassidy set a 1:23.785 to finish at the top of the time sheets in a closely fought session with seven out of the 11 teams featuring in the top 10 spaces, once the session reached its conclusion.

At the Homestead Miami Speedway, Cassidy topped the times ahead of Antonio Felix Da Costa of Porsche, while second in the championship Taylor Barnard shone once again to finish third in the session.

Reported mechanical difficulties for Oliver Rowland saw him suffer and hindered his session. He finished in 19th place.

How Free Practice 1 unfolded at the 2024/25 Miami E-Prix 

For the first time in almost two months, it was time for race weekend action in the 2024/25 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship. The series prepared for round five of the season taking place at a brand new venue in the Homestead Miami Speedway.

Formula E was not totally new to Miami, it had raced there back in 2015 but a different venue. However, after a decade it was back and at a brand new venue, the teams and drivers would be in the unknown as to what to expect this coming weekend.

Luckily for the teams and drivers, two Free Practice sessions prior to qualifying would give them opportunities to learn the circuit and in preparation for the E-Prix at the end of Saturday's action.

Free Practice 1 began on Friday with green flags flying and the green light coming on at the end of the pit lane to signal the start of the 40-minute session.

As is common with the start of Free Practice 1 sessions across the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship, a full course yellow test is undertaken by the FIA Race Director, which is just to see how smoothly things would run in the event of needing one during Saturday's E-Prix.

In the first 10 minutes, the track had been busy and so had Oliver Rowland who was the driver to beat as the championship leader had top spot in the first quarter of the session. He led Stoffel Vandoorne of Maserati and Jean-Eric Vergne of DS Penske.

Rowland would have the time beaten by the Lola Cars of Lucas Di Grassi, as it was the Brazilian who would go fastest with a 1:24.628. He went fastest and following that Mitch Evans would go into second therefore making it a completely different top two.

The halfway point and Di Grassi remained at the top of the time sheets for Lola Cars. A change for second position saw Evans bumped down to third. Edoardo Mortara for Mahindra had moved up into second place.

A change at the top saw Evans go to the top of the time sheets for Jaguar. His time was a 1:23.956 with Norman Nato moving up into second place, just behind the New Zealander. Di Grassi was still in third place ahead of Edoardo Mortara and Sam Bird.

Then came the time for Nick Cassidy to lay down the lap time that topped the entire session by the time the chequered flag flew at the Homestead Miami Speedway. A 1:23.785 for Cassidy & that made it a Jaguar 1-2.

The time for Cassidy remained unbeaten however at the end of the session it was not to be a Jaguar 1-2 as Antonio Felix Da Costa had a put a lap together to finish second, ahead of McLaren young superstar Taylor Barnard who rounded off the top three.

Despite having a strong session, where he spent most of his time inside the top three, Evans would have to settle for fourth place only with reigning world champion Pascal Wehrlein rounding off the top five.

The second McLaren of Sam Bird would finish in sixth place making it two Jaguar, two Porsche and two McLaren cars all in the top six positions. This was ahead of Nissan's Norman Nato in seventh and Kiro Race's Dan Ticktum in eighth.

DS Penske's Maximilian Gunther was ninth while the Lola of Lucas Di Grassi completed the top 10 positions.

Formula E action in Miami would continue with Free Practice 2 on Saturday, which would kick-start the action of E-Prix Race day at the Homestead Speedway.

2024/25 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship: Round 5 - Miami E-Prix Free Practice 1 result

1. Nick Cassidy
2. Antonio Felix Da Costa
3. Taylor Barnard
4. Mitch Evans
5. Pascal Wehrlein
6. Sam Bird
7. Norman Nato
8. Dan Ticktum
9. Maximilian Gunther
10. Lucas Di Grassi
11. Nyck De Vries
12. Robin Frijns
13. David Beckmann
14. Jake Hughes
15. Stoffel Vandoorne
16. Jean-Eric Vergne
17. Edoardo Mortara
18. Jake Dennis
19. Oliver Rowland
20. Zane Maloney
21. Nico Mueller
22. Sebastian Buemi

Brandon Whiteside
Writer - F1 Journal