The Brazilian produced a 53.770s – quicker than Nicolas Prost’s best time from the previous session – to pip the Virgin Racing driver, closely followed by Amlin Aguri’s Antonio Felix da Costa, Jerome D’Ambrosio (Dragon) and Prost.

It was Alguersuari who lead the way for almost the entire session setting his best lap midway through the session which saw two brief red flags caused by loose bollards on the exit to the Swimming Pool chicane.

Venturi’s Stephane Sarrazin, Sebastien Buemi (e.dams-Renault), Andretti pairing of Jean-Eric Vergne and Scott Speed and Long Beach winner Nelson Piquet Jr (NEXTEV TCR) completed the top-10 in the closely fought session.

Today’s qualifying session gets underway at 12:00 (local time) with full coverage on the official Formula E website.