The Jaguar driver topped the 30-minute session with a 1m13.215s, which was red-flagged after solely 5 minutes had been accomplished when a number of automobiles got here to a halt on monitor.
This included each Porsches of Pascal Wehrlein and Antonio Felix da Costa, each ERT’s of Sergio Sette Camara and Dan Ticktum, in addition to Mahindra’s Nyck de Vries.
All 5 automobiles needed to be recovered again to the pits on the again of a flatbed truck, with Ticktum reporting that his problem was associated to the brakes and a software program problem.
Andretti group principal, Roger Griffiths, mentioned: “We have now to have a look at the frequent elements on the automotive and it seems that all the automobiles have stopped with some battery problem.
“We do know that there was a software program replace between Berlin and coming right here. After we arrived right here the [battery supplier] WAE engineers have been updating the automobiles, so I think one thing has gone astray of their software program replace or possibly there’s a bug in it.
“So that they’re going by attempting to establish what actually occurred and maybe the answer might be to roll again to the final identified model of software program that everyone ran efficiently in Berlin.
Shanghai Worldwide Circuit
Picture by: Alastair Staley / Motorsport Images
“It hasn’t affected us but, however nothing to say if we’d gone out yet one more lap, we wouldn’t all have stopped out on the monitor.
“I believe it’s a case of a little bit of luck and we have been one of some automobiles that accomplished a push lap.
“It didn’t have an effect on us, nevertheless it may very well be proper on the cusp of tripping over and then you definately’ve obtained 22 automobiles stopped out on the monitor and all of us look a bit foolish.”
After a delay of practically 50 minutes and in any case automobiles underwent a software program replace, the session resumed for 25 minutes across the Shanghai Worldwide Circuit, which performs host to Formulation E for the primary time this weekend.
Evans moved to the highest of the instances within the closing minutes, leaving the Kiwi simply 0.025s away from Andretti’s Norman Nato and DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne.
Evans’ team-mate and championship chief Nick Cassidy completed eleventh, whereas McLaren’s Sam Bird claimed sixteenth in his first outing since his return from a damaged hand.
All 5 drivers that brought about the crimson flag have been in a position to take part within the session, with da Costa one of the best positioned in sixth.