The Frenchman, who won the Miami ePrix, put in his best lap – a 54.171s – with eight minutes left in the session to edge ahead of team-mate Sebastien Buemi by 0.115s

Prior to that, it had been a cautious start for many of the drivers as they got to grips with the revised 1.76km Monaco layout for the very first time. Virgin’s Jaime Alguersuari and Nelson Piquet Jr (NEXTEV TCR) traded places at the top of the timesheets in the opening stages.

NEXTEV TCR’s Charles Pic then briefly went top closely followed by Alguersuari and Audi Sport ABT’s Lucas di Grassi but none of the field had any answer for the e.dams drivers with Buemi and Prost the only ones to break under the 55 second barrier.

With Pic holding onto third spot, Amlin Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa finished fourth ahead of D’Ambrosio and Alguersuari. Virgin team-mate Sam Bird finished seventh despite twice slowing down on track with a technical issue. Di Grassi, Stephane Sarrazin (Venturi) and Duval rounded out the top-10.