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The first practice for this weekend's inaugural Formula E Championship event in Beijing was topped by Lucas di Grassi for the Audi-backed Abt team.

The Brazilian ended up fastest in the opening 45-minute period of free practice with a 1m41.937s lap around the 2.11-mile Beijing ePrix street circuit.

That put him more than half a second up on his closest rival, Sebastien Buemi in the best of the e.dams squad's pair of Spark-Renault SRT_01E one-make electric racers.

Buemi's time of 1m42.902s placed him four tenths ahead of third-placed Virgin Racing driver Sam Bird.

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Fourth place was taken by Nicolas Prost on a 1m42.961s in the second e.dams car from Karun Chandhok in the best of the Carlin-run Mahindra Racing entries.

Team-mate Bruno Senna, who ended up 15th in the times, looked set to snatch the top spot in the dying seconds of the session.

The second Mahindra car was half a second up on di Grassi at the second split when it was baulked at the final corner .

There is a further 30 minutes of free practice session ahead of qualifying and the 25-lap race, which starts at just after 4pm local time (9am BST).

Follow the inaugural Formula E race as it happens with AUTOSPORT Race Centre Live from 9am UK time on Saturday

Pos Driver Team Time Gap 1 Lucas di Grassi Abt 1m41.937s - 2 Sebastien Buemi e.dams 1m42.510s 0.573s 3 Sam Bird Virgin 1m42.902s 0.965s 4 Nicolas Prost e.dams 1m42.961s 1.024s 5 Karun Chandhok Mahindra 1m43.220s 1.283s 6 Jerome d'Ambrosio Dragon 1m43.539s 1.602s 7 Daniel Abt Abt 1m43.626s 1.689s 8 Franck Montagny Andretti 1m44.102s 2.165s 9 Charles Pic Andretti 1m44.182s 2.245s 10 Jarno Trulli Trulli 1m44.520s 2.583s 11 Stephane Sarrazin Venturi 1m44.522s 2.585s 12 Ho-Pin Tung China 1m44.839s 2.902s 13 Nelson Piquet Jr. China 1m45.146s 3.209s 14 Takuma Sato Aguri 1m45.450s 3.513s 15 Bruno Senna Mahindra 1m45.469s 3.532s 16 Jaime Alguersuari Virgin 1m45.982s 4.045s 17 Nick Heidfeld Venturi 1m46.579s 4.642s 18 Michela Cerruti Trulli 1m46.778s 4.841s 19 Oriol Servia Dragon 1m50.872s 8.935s 20 Katherine Legge Aguri 1m51.850s 9.913s