Jean-Eric Vergne made an immediate impression on his public debut for Techeetah on Wednesday by setting a new Formula E lap record at Donington Park. A fastest lap of 1:29.634 saw Vergne edge out Felix Rosenqvist by 0.085 seconds, making good use of his new Renault powertrain. Sebastien Buemi finished the day third-fastest for Renault e.dams, while Daniel Abt’s fastest time in the afternoon placed him fourth overall for ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport. Check out our full blog of the day below.

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1824 Apologies for the long delay in updates – we’ve just been out checking the new Roborace “DevBot” on its public debut. Sadly, it didn’t go to plan. After three laps with a driver and a 15 minute wait after that, the car finally went away on its own…and then stopped at the final corner. Oh dear. The Roborace people were quick to tell us that the car had intentionally been stopped by marshals. From the looks of it, that’s right, but only because the car was about to launch itself off the track. Still, a very cool looking machine.

1658 The session will not be restarted, so that’s all for day two and it’s Daniel Abt who ends the afternoon quickest.

1657 Three minutes left and that might be it for the day as we’re still under red flags.

1650 Another red flag. Ma Qinghua appears to have stopped.

1649 Prost is P2 with a flying lap, only for Abt to go fastest of all – one-tenth of a second faster than Bird.

1646 Back to green with 14 minutes left. Can anyone beat Bird’s time at the top?

1640 Red flag with 20 minutes remaining after a stoppage for Evans on the main straight. A number of drivers had just exited the pits, so will have to return.

1636 Fast laps are starting to come in. Oliver Turvey rises to P3 for NextEV, while Evans is now P7 in the second Jaguar.

1629 Vergne posts the fastest first sector of the day before his lap tails off. 200kW runs might well be coming up in the final 30 minutes…

1623 While we’ve been out and about, Duval’s risen to second in the timesheets for Dragon. D’Ambrosio doesn’t appear to be going anywhere for the time being after his issues.

1600 Into the final hour. Adam Carroll has just risen to P4 for Jaguar.

1555 Green flag is back out now with d’Ambrosio back in the pit lane. Hourly update coming up in five minutes.

1544 Another red flag. This time it’s d’Ambrosio who has stopped.

Red flag, as Jerome stops out on track. He'll be recovered quickly and hopefully underway again shortly #fetesting pic.twitter.com/cGaKPrb9ob — Dragon Racing (@DragonRacing) August 24, 2016

1538 Sarrazin lifts Venturi up to P3, 1.2 seconds off Bird. Curiously, both Renault e.dams drivers are at the bottom of the timesheets – how long until they go ‘full Buemi’ though?

1529 Green again on-track with Rosenqvist returned to the pit lane. 90 minutes left today.

1528 Just before the red flag, Antonio Felix da Costa put in a stellar lap time to go P2 for Andretti, eight-tenths of a second off Bird’s time at the top. Frijns has been less busy, spending some time up in the media centre chilling out – guessing he isn’t set to run anytime soon…

1523 Red flag – Rosenqvist appears to have stopped on-track.

1520 Big Cat Diary – Jaguar currently occupies P13 and P16, putting in the laps with Carroll and Evans.

Day two of @FIAformulaE testing is well underway and we’re looking just as good as the weather. #JaguarElectrifies pic.twitter.com/h7npcpi3Js — Jaguar (@Jaguar) August 24, 2016

1513 Ma Qinghua has quickly got up to pace for Techeetah. He’s in for the afternoon alongside Vergne, and currently sits seventh.

1511 New fastest lap: this time it’s Sam Bird who’s P1. A blistering effort to go 1.7 seconds clear of the field in P1 for DS Virgin.

1507 We’ve just been for a wander and a chat with our resident tech expert Craig Scarborough, lots of interesting nuggets of information! Here’s the not-quite-hourly update.

1439 Frijns is currently the only driver out on-track. It seems Andretti’s battery issues from this morning have been resolved, so he’s back out on his way. His first flying lap of the afternoon lifts him to 11th in the timings.

1430 Vergne goes quickest again, half a second faster than Bird. After topping the morning session, the Techeetah driver looks to be on a mission to do the same this afternoon.

1423 Breaking news: there’s ice cream in the media centre. Blame our social media-bod Laura.

1407 Busy start to the afternoon with a flurry of cars heading out on-track. Sam Bird is currently quickest with Daniel Abt sitting P2.

1400 Green light on at the end of the pit lane, the second session is now underway. Teams have until 1700 to get in all the running they can.

1355 Five minutes until we’re back running for the afternoon.

1347 The pit lane is now emptying ahead of the resumption of running. Three hours left in the day starting from 2pm.

1335 While the drivers are meeting their adoring public, we’re having a spot of lunch. Our photographers march (and shoot) on their stomach!

1330 The pit walk is now underway for the fans that have come to Donington Park. All of the teams (with the exception of Techeetah, it seems) have their drivers out signing and posing for pictures.

Fantastic to see so many fans out in force for the pit walk! pic.twitter.com/rQ4wf0vfiR — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 24, 2016

1246 While we’re on lunch break, why not give our awesome photographic team a follow on Twitter? @Spacesuit_Media have been getting some brilliant snaps from Donington Park today.

1230 For any fans at the track reading: be sure to head to the pit lane at 1315 for the pit walk and signing session. That will run until 1345 before running resumes at 1400.

1225 Just before the end of the session and Vergne’s late charge, we caught up with Mahindra team principal Dilbagh Gill, who was happy but cautious after its start to testing. “It’s early days yes,” he told Current E. “We’re happy because if we compare to where we were last year, there’s been more than a second improvement in the car, so that’s good. Felix is new to the track, it’s the first time he ever drove yesterday so he’s getting to know the track. From that perspective I think we’re OK, but yeah – I’m not going to read anything into these numbers.

“I think the thing that gives me confidence is that as you know, we’ve supplied components to Dragon also. So to have four cars in the top five, that feels nice. That’s giving me a bit of encouragement as it’s not just us. It’s our sister team also up there. It’s nice to see Sebastien try and get close… It should be good.”

1213 So after the first three sessions of pre-season testing, who has completed the most laps? Here are the numbers:

1. Buemi 58

2. Prost 57

3. Da Costa 57

4. Lopez 54

5. Carroll 54

6. Abt 53

7. Di Grassi 51

8. Bird 51

9. Engel 49

10. Frijns 49

11. Heidfeld 49

12. Sarrazin 47

13. Rosenqvist 44

14. D’Ambrosio 43

15. Piquet 40

16. Ma Qinghua 39

17. Duval 37

18. Vergne 32

19. Lynn 29

20. Turvey 25

21. Evans 20

1200 Checkered flag is now out, that’s the morning session over with. Vergne leads for Techeetah from Rosenqvist and Buemi. All three are below the previous lap record for Formula E at Donington Park.

1156 After the earlier stoppage, Felix Rosenqvist is now heading back out on-track for Mahindra. Four minutes left in the morning.

1152 Not just quick, but putting in more laps than anyone. A good start for Techeetah on Wednesday.

Vergne not only quickest, but also has racked up the most laps (31). A good morning for @TecheetahFE #FormulaE — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 24, 2016

1150 More WEC/FE crossover: Mark Webber is at Donington to see how Mitch Evans is getting on. Webber is Evans’ mentor and manager, so will be gunning for him to get the Jaguar seat.

1147 Just over 10 minutes to go and Vergne has just gone quickest for Techeetah – impressive start!

1114 Buemi improves again – but still can’t take P1. 0.046 seconds behind Rosenqvist now.

1111 Buemi threaten’s to topple Rosenqvist at the top with a purple first sector, but falls two-tenths short with his lap. P2 for the Swiss racer.

1107 We’re now green again. Mahindra have just tweeted out quite a cool gif showing the evolution of its liveries from season one to three. What’s your favourite?

1103 Session is red flagged after another stoppage for Venturi, this time it’s Engel. If you’re at the track and reading, while we’re in a lull, why not send over your pictures to NextEV on Twitter?

Who's at Donington testing today? ? ?

? Tag your photos/video of the car in the summer sunshine with #NextEVolution! pic.twitter.com/RGRxTf9qa5 — NextEV Formula E (@NextEVFETeam) August 24, 2016

1100 Here’s the latest hourly update. One hour to go in the morning session.

1050 Back comes Rosenqvist, and we’re back to green.

Rosenqvist returns after his stoppage. pic.twitter.com/NIc1XprAV8 — Luke Smith (@LukeSmithF1) August 24, 2016

1047 Not the day Andretti wanted. A battery change in order for Frijns has limited him to just three laps.

1045 While we’ve been out snooping, Felix Rosenqvist has shot to the top of the timesheets with a new Formula E lap record at Donington Park – 1:29.719. We’re now under red flag for the Swede stopping, though.

1015 Vergne moves up to third, two-tenths behind Buemi’s time during his first run in the Techeetah.

1013 Duval goes 1.4 seconds faster than anyone to take P1 away. We’re now just half a second off the fastest time from Tuesday. Rapid effort from Dragon.

1005 As a follow-up to the earlier news about the engineer re-shuffle at DS Virgin: it appears that the DS Performance engineer working with Lopez will only be doing so in Hong Kong and Marrakech. After that, Lopez is set to bring in his engineer from WTCC, where he has won the last two championships and is poised to claim a third in 2016. Big experience coming in!

1000 Here’s the timesheets after the first hour of running on Tuesday morning.

0953 A bit of a lull in running at the moment, no cars currently on-track. We’ve just had a quick chat with Sam Bird about superlicence points following the boost of Formula E’s rating for season three – that feature will be coming up in the break between testing and Hong Kong.

0950 Right, time for wander in the pit lane to see what I can see. Will be back shortly.

0949 Mr Lynn, time for your close up.

0948 Mr Felix da Costa showing some love to Spacesuit photographer Shiv Gohil.

0947 Mr Piquet pushing it to the limit. And beyond.

0946 While the cars are sticking in some laps, how about a few more snaps from yesterday?

0937 Yep, I think sticking to that won’t be a problem.

0935 Track has gone quite quiet, just three cars out at the moment. Duval is currently on his first outlap of the day after an impressive Tuesday of running for Dragon. Both Duval and d’Ambrosio ran at the head of the field for most of the day. Can they do the same again on Wednesday?

0924 Bird moves up to P2 for DS Virgin, three-tenths off Buemi and with the fastest final sector.

0922 Testing is all about ironing out problems… although Piquet’s getting a little tired of recurring issues with the radios.

3rd season of @FIAformulaE on the go and MRTC radios still cant get our radios to work!!! — Nelson Piquet Jr. (@NelsonPiquet) August 24, 2016

0920 Fans are now starting to file into the grandstands – beautiful weather for it!

0916 Yesterday saw four drivers turn in a lap in the 1:30s range, with half the grid going quicker than at this point in testing last year. It was Buemi who led the way (as we write, he’s just gone faster again) with Heidfeld second for Mahindra. For a full recap, check out our live blog by clicking here.

0912 Buemi is now on top, going almost two-tenths of a second faster than Engel. We’re already edging closer towards yesterday’s fastest time and it’s not even 9:15am yet!

0908 New boy Maro Engel has just lit the timesheets purple, going P1 for Venturi with a lap of 1:32.547. That’s Venturi’s quickest time of testing so far after a difficult Tuesday filled with problems.

0904 First lap times are already in. Prost leads the way for Renault e.dams with Vergne currently sitting P2. Fastest time from Tuesday was 1:30.143 – expect that benchmark to easily be beaten today.

0900 Day two is GO! First cars are now out on-track as the morning session goes green. Three hours of running coming up before the lunch break. Buemi is the first man out – he has a habit of being first at things…

0858 Today is the first chance for fans to see the season three cars in action. Tuesday’s running was closed off, but they’re queuing up early this morning!

0857 Three minutes or so to go until we’re green. Blue skies and a gentle breeze currently gracing Donington Park, good conditions for running.

0852 We’ve already seen a few a drivers signing on including Mr Vergne. We’ll have a chat with him later about all things Techeetah.

0849 And this is the driver entry list for today:

ABT Schaeffler Audi Sport – Lucas di Grassi/Daniel Abt

Andretti – Robin Frijns/Antonio Felix da Costa

Dragon – Loic Duval/Jerome d’Ambrosio

DS Virgin – Sam Bird/Jose Maria Lopez

Renault e.dams – Sebastien Buemi/Nico Prost

Jaguar Racing – Adam Carroll/Mitch Evans

Mahindra Racing – Nick Heidfeld/Felix Rosenqvist

NextEV – Oliver Turvey

Techeetah – Jean-Eric Vergne/Ma Qinghua (afternoon only)

Venturi – Stephane Sarrazin/Maro Engel

0844 Here are the session times today:

Morning: 0900-1200

Afternoon: 1400-1700

0841 Today is the first day that the sessions are open to the public. Security is notably tighter, there’s a lot more fencing and many, many orange suited marshals bustling about. If yesterday was about installation laps and settling powertrains and drivers, today should be about building on those programmes and extending laps and lap times.

0839 This is kinda how we’re feeling this morning:

0832 The first thing I spotted this morning was that Patrick Coorey, Sam Bird’s former engineer at DS Virgin Racing, was strolling through the paddock with a Jaguar Racing top on with Adam Carroll. That’s a key hire for Jag. Bird will get Jean-Eric Vergne’s engineer from last season while new boy Lopez will be looked after by a DS Performance engineer.

0830 Good morning Donington! (And everyone else, too.) It’s day two of testing ahead of Formula E’s third season and we’re raring to go. I’ll be feeding you live updates all day here so bookmark this page and check back regularly.

Luke Smith