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Five months (158 days) after the last race in Marrakech, after which FE suspended operations for COVID-19, the championship resumed for its forty-five-minute opening consultation.
Rowland set a reference time of 1m07,832s with 11 minutes to the end, and a save for James Calado two minutes later brought the red flag from which the consultation would continue.
Jaguar Calado passed the first part of the opening tests in the garage after the team experienced a small software problem, which forced the replacement of the precautionary powertrain.
A rebuilding effort allowed him to leave the garage, but his car I-Type four stopped at Turn 3 on the first lap after Feather reported a “big turn”.
Fe protocols revised after coronavirus meant fewer administrators at the site in Berlin, which will cause longer delays, but combined with the powertrain failure, the race on the track was interrupted early through race director Scot Elkins.
That left Bird, who will replace Calado at Jaguar next season, in second and 0.236s adrift of Rowland as reigning champion Jean-Eric Vergne was a late climber to third place.
Dragon’s Nico Muller wound up fourth, eclipsing the time of Jerome d’Ambrosio who ran in the higher-power attack mode for Mahindra Racing.
Alexander Sims was the top BMW Andretti pilot in sixth, as Venturi customer team driver Edoardo Mortara beat the parent powertrain of Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries to seventh.
Bird’s teammate Robin Frijns finished ninth, and Sebastien Buemi – Rowland’s Nissan counterpart – rounded out the top 10.
Pre-event points leader Antonio Felix da Costa was shuffled down the order late on to finish 11th as title rivals Maximilian Gunther and Mitch Evans were only 15th and 16th respectively – the latter complaining over team radio about a lack of traction.
Two-time DTM champion Rene Rast marked his return to Formula E with 17th, one spot higher than NIO 333 driver Daniel Abt whom he came to replace at Audi. Rast’s teammate Lucas di Grassi was 20th.
Results to follow