Sebastien Buemi started season three where he left off in season two by topping the opening day of collective testing at Donington Park for Renault e.dams. The Swiss driver turned in a lap of 1:30.143 – just two-tenths of a second off the all-time Formula E lap record at the track – to finish three-quarters of a second clear in P1. Tuesday saw a number of drivers make their first public Formula E appearances, as well as the much-anticipated debut for Jaguar.

Below you can find all of our rolling updates throughout the day at Donington Park, as well as some top photos from the Spacesuit Media crew.

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1900 That’s a wrap for the live blog on day one of testing at Donington Park. We’ll be back tomorrow with more updates. Testing begins at 9am, with the morning session wrapping up at 12pm. The afternoon session runs from 2pm until 5pm, after which the RoboRace ‘DevBot’ is due to make an appearance on track.

1814 Ma Qinghua’s car gets dropped back off at the Techeetah garage. A quietly impressive showing from Formula E’s newest team that saw the Chinese driver run inside the top 10 for much of the day.

Delivery for Techeetah at the end of the day. pic.twitter.com/rW3Fbb96xq — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 23, 2016

1801 Here are the final times for day one of collective pre-season testing.

1800 Chequered flag is now out. Final runs being completed. Heidfeld shoots up to second place for Mahindra, while d’Ambrosio is fifth-fastest for Dragon. Frijns is up to P13.

1757 Back to green with three minutes remaining. Any last glory runs to come?

1754 We’ve now got a red flag – unclear who has stopped. That might be it for today.

1753 “Full Buemi” is now A Thing.

Buemi just went full Buemi. 0.8s faster than di Grassi. Damn son #FormulaE — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 23, 2016

1747 Buemi goes a stonking 0.8s faster than the fastest lap, set a minute before by di Grassi. Those two. New tech, same old story.

1744 Very, very black…

1744 Mr Abt…

1743 How about a couple more Spacesuit snaps as we move into the final 17mins of running?

1737 Lopez improves again, now up to P7. Just three-quarters of a second separates P1 to P7.

1736 Daniel Abt rises to fifth while Jose Maria Lopez goes P8 with the fastest third sector of anybody. DS Virgin really turning things up late in the day.

1733 And now Felix Rosenqvist has gone fourth-fastest for Mahindra. We’ve got seven different teams in the top 10 as things stand – been a closely-fought day!

1730 30 minutes left in the day and it’s now Sam Bird who is P1 with a lap of 1:30.992, one-tenth of a second quicker than di Grassi.

1706 Duval is minus a front wing. Whoops. Anywho, we’re back to green.

1700 The final hourly update before the chequered flag.

1657 We’re under red flag again. It appears that Loic Duval has stopped out on track just ahead of the final hour.

1635 So that puts the Brazilian and both Jaguar drivers ahead of last year’s fastest lap. On day one. Impressive stuff.

1632 Lucas di Grassi is now P1 for ABT with a rapid lap that’s nearly a second faster than the quickest time from testing last year. Alex Lynn is three-tenths of a second further back in the second Jaguar with Carroll in P3.

1626 We’re back to green after a red flag for Piquet. Carroll still leads the way. We’ve just had a chat with Antonio Felix da Costa about his move to Andretti – stay tuned for that on Current E in the near future. He’s not sure what issue caused him to stop at the end of the pit lane earlier, but says Andretti is making good progress and even provoking issues on the car to make sure all systems are working as they should be.

1600 Two hours left in the day. Here’s how the timesheets are looking.

1557 Until that leap up the order by Carroll, just 2.6s covered every driver. That’s not bad, especially compared to this time last year. This is going to be one tasty, tasty season.

1554 Talking of Piquet, here’s what he’s up to this afternoon:

1547 We’re playing Numberwang in the media centre (mainly because there’s only one car on track). Nelson Piquet has lost his #1 as he’s no longer champion, but he hasn’t gone back to the #99 he used in season one. He’s going to use #3 for season three. Sebastien Buemi is currently testing with a blank livery, and is still using #9 despite now being champion. Maybe a bit like Lewis Hamilton in Formula 1, he’ll turn down the #1 and stick with that number.

1545 This pretty much sums it up:

We believe we have found the @JaguarRacing hashtag of the day! #CatHasClaws https://t.co/mraOqwxt6X — Influence Associates (@InfluenceComms) August 23, 2016

1541 The cat’s out the bag – Jaguar goes half a second faster than everyone courtesy of Adam Carroll, purple in every sector. Not bad for day one at Donington.

1537 Another red flag, this time courtesy of Antonio Felix da Costa who stopped at the end of the pit lane. First issue for Andretti today – a far cry from last year when it could hardly complete a lap.

1522 Here’s a handy reminder from the Formula E team about fastest times:

A reminder that the fastest time from last year's first test day was a 1:32.092. Buemi not far off already #FETesting — FIA Formula E (@FIAformulaE) August 23, 2016

1518 Bit of a sparse period. Not too much track activity at the moment. So, while there’s not a lot going on, what do we think about the new front wing? Personally, I think it looks very cool. Much better in person than some of the previous photos we’d seen. Proper.

1516 It is roasting here at the track. Lovely. Just been watching the cars down at the hairpin. Piquet is attacking it like nothing else, as is Abt. Tyre smoke and squealing abounds.

1501 An (almost) hourly update on the timesheets. Three hours left today.

1439 Duval improves to go P4. Like Noah’s Ark, the Renaults and Dragons are two-by-two at the head of the field right now.

1436 Buemi still leads the way and has worked his quickest time down to 1:32.862, heading up a Renault e.dams one-two with Nico Prost in tow. D’Ambrosio is still the best of the rest currently for Dragon. It’s a warm but breezy day – decent testing conditions.

1411 Here’s a corker of a shot.

1408 A few others are now out on track. So, what can we deduce thus far from testing? Well, everyone is running. That’s a big step forwards from last year. Jaguar hasn’t arrived with any fireworks but, knowing some of the tech boys at the team, we’d expect them to play a slightly more careful game in these early days. Actually, as is everyone. Today is really about checking all cars are working properly and gathering data, data, data.

1405 Regarding out last comment…that might be because it’s only Lynn out on track at the moment…

1404 Green flags again. Feels like a bit of an interrupted session but perhaps that’s just my perception! The Jags really seem to be trucking along now.

1352 Another red flag. This time it’s Nick Heidfeld who’s stopped on track.

1340 While we’ve been updating the pictures, there has been a flurry of times at the top of the timesheets. Mahindra’s Felix Rosenqvist was the first to dip under d’Ambrosio’s benchmark from this morning, but is now sixth-fastest. Just as we saw this morning, it’s Renault e.dams and Dragon leading the way, with Sebastien Buemi currently leading by half a second. Also worth noting that Nelson Piquet is P4 for NextEV – good going compared to this time last year!

1339 And Abt at speed on track.

1338 Big Cat emerging.

1336 A shiny copper-coloured nose for the Dragon cars, which are otherwise in bare carbon fibre.

1332 Here’s Nelson Piquet. He seems relaxed and focused. The team has turned up with a whole boatload of new gear, including two massive team trucks with the biggest mast you’ve ever seen. Puns invited.

1331 Here’s Engel after a mishap in the Venturi:

1329 Here’s Nick Heidfeld getting ready in the cockpit of his Mahindra Racing machine:

1328 Here’s a Jag on track in its grey testing livery:

1327 How about some awesome Spacesuit snaps from this morning to help us along?

1323 Sarrazin has returned to the garage on the back of a tow truck. We’re now back to green. Happy days.

1316 First red flag of the afternoon. Stephane Sarrazin has stopped out on track. Only he and Sam Bird have ventured out so far.

1311 …and still no-one on track. Guessing lunch morning debrief is still the focus.

1300 With the lunch break now over, we’re back underway at Donington with the afternoon session of testing. No cars out on track to begin with.

1230 Lunchtime in the paddock. We just had a quick chat with Sam Bird, who said that this is the first time for DS Virgin Racing running the full setup – the noises are positive so far. He wouldn’t be drawn on what powertrain spec the team is running though: “I’m sure everyone will find out soon” was the coy response.

1216 What always makes it a little confusing at testing is working out which cars are running and with which drivers. You may see me with a puzzled expression on my face.

Live timing showing 8/10 teams running both cars. NextEV and Techeetah the exception, it seems #FormulaE — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 23, 2016

1214 Guess who’s back? Yep, probably the hardest-working woman in motorsport media, Nicki Shields. Complete with bright red boots.

1st day back at school, trying to make friends w/ new kid in class @MaroEngel..Not forgetting familar faces too ? pic.twitter.com/J0ilfktSWR — Nicki Shields (@Nickishields) August 23, 2016

1200 Here’s the timing sheet for Tuesday morning:

1159 We’ve got a second red flag in the final minute of the morning session. Jose Maria Lopez has stopped out on track in his DS Virgin Racing car.

1149 Ten minutes remain in this first session. There’s a lot of sleek carbon fibre on show under the powertrain fairings. It’s surprising how many of the cars do sound similar now. We’re busy straining ears to figure out who’s running what gears. Just the one stoppage so far this morning, courtesy of Maro Engel in the Venturi.

Dragon, DS Virgin and eDAMS also not running their liveries yet #FormulaE pic.twitter.com/nOCNj3Ihgo — Chris Stevens (@CStevens_journo) August 23, 2016

Both drivers are in their cars & currently powering round the track. Note our slick carbon fibre interim look. Like? pic.twitter.com/6BVyLIgsni — RENAULT e.dams (@RENAULTedams) August 23, 2016

1136 Here’s a cool little vid snapshot from Sam Smith:

Here @AdamCarroll47 returning to pit after first public run of @JaguarRacing car. Great to see Cat in @FIAformulaE pic.twitter.com/UAgkQRh21g — sniffermedia (@sniffermedia) August 23, 2016

1105 We’ve already seen the Jaguars make their first on-track appearance. Alex Lynn is enjoying his run today, with Harry Tincknell and Mitch Evans set to complete their tests on Wednesday and Thursday.

1100 Formula E is officially BACK as the drivers head out on track. Lots of cars already starting a flying lap.

1059 Track is about to go green! We can hear motors winding up.

1030 We’re 30 minutes away from the start of test running, drivers are getting strapped into their cars.

0945 Venturi’s announcement was a technical tie-up with ZF, the world’s third-largest automotive parts supplier. The company already supplies the entire Formula E grid with its shock absorbers, and is now committing itself to developing electric tech with a workforce of 5,000 people. Venturi’s Jim Wright said the tie-up will “put Venturi in the Premier League” – a bold statement indeed.

0840 The official schedule for the day is still to be confirmed, but running is set to begin at 11am until a lunch break at around 12:30. There should be six hours of running today.

0832 Before the start of testing, we’ve got a sponsor announcement from Venturi in a press conference at 9am. We’ll also be posting the full driver line-up for the day once we get it.

0830 Good morning and welcome to Current E’s live blog from Donington Park for the first day of Formula E’s collective preseason testing ahead of season three. We’ll be providing live updates, pictures and info throughout the day, so make sure to bookmark this page.

Luke Smith