Jules Bianchi topped Sam Bird in the second practice session for the World Series by Renault at the brand-new Moscow Raceway.
Bird had set the pace for much of the second half of the session, which started late after the day's program was halted due to a power cut at the new circuit. The ISR driver then responded to Bianchi the first time the Frenchman bested him with 17 minutes remaining. Shortly after that he did the same thing when championship rival Robin Frijns briefly took top spot.
But when the session went green again with five minutes to go after a brief red flag, Bianchi was one of the few drivers to get clear track for his one flying lap, and he managed a lap less than a tenth of a second quicker than his former GP2 teammate.
Bird took a comfortable second as the top two were half a second clear of everybody else, with Marco Sorensen leading the way just ahead of Frijns.
Late improvements from Arthur Pic and Jake Rosenzweig got them into the top six, at the expense of Alexander Rossi, after the American had been a factor in the top 10 for the majority of the afternoon.
