He pulled away from the rest of the field and led until he collided with the barrier after swerving to avoid José María López's crashed car on the 17th lap allowing Sam Bird to take the lead.

It was intended for inclusion in the 2014–15 season schedule but negotiations and approval from local authorities and motorsport's international governing body, the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA), went longer than anticipated.

[4] In October 2015 the Hong Kong ePrix was announced by the CEO and founder of Formula E Alejandro Agag in a press conference at the Central Harbour Front Event Space, pending further review from the FIA.

[6] It was the first of 12 single-seater electric car races of the season, and was held at the Hong Kong Central Harbourfront Circuit on 9 October 2016.

One of the main changes involved the début appearance of Jaguar in the sport with the 2008–09 A1 Grand Prix champion Adam Carroll and the 2012 GP3 Series title winner Mitch Evans competing for the team.

[8] The final change involved two-time Macau Grand Prix winner and reigning European Formula Three champion Felix Rosenqvist joining the series with Mahindra, partnering Nick Heidfeld.

Daniel Abt, Engel, Vergne, Bird, Stéphane Sarrazin, Prost, Félix da Costa and Rosenqvist rounded out the session's top ten fastest drivers.

[21][22] The session was first disrupted when Oliver Turvey's vehicle stopped on track with an electrical issue after four minutes, necessitating the brief deployment of red flags,[21][23] to allow course workers to remove his car from the circuit.

López lost his vehicle's nose cone in a collision with a wall at the same corner, and his rear wing was removed from his car when he hit the turn eight barrier.

Super Pole was cancelled following several long delays caused by multiple crashes and the starting order was determined by the fastest overall times in the four groups.

[28] Buemi went out first in the fourth group and was initially two-tenths of a second slower than Piquet despite no driver errors on his full power lap and took fifth place.

Rosenqvist was the first driver to venture onto the track in the group three and drove aggressively which saw him make light contact with the barrier to qualify sixth.

[30] Abt took seventh place, ahead of Duval but he served a three-place starting position penalty after he was observed speeding under red-flag conditions in shakedown.

[29] Prost's full power lap saw him narrowly avoid hitting the chicane and his car slid at the final turn, leaving him ninth.

[28] Di Grassi, 19th, pushed hard and made an error at the chicane, hitting the wall, damaging his front-left quarter, and triggering red-flag conditions with three minutes left in the second group.

[29] Frijns completed the field and temporarily stopped qualifying when his car went airborne after hitting the kerbs at the chicane and collided with the barrier.

[20] For the Hong Kong race, Buemi, di Grassi and López were handed the extra power[31] and the results were announced on the 14th lap.

[34] When the event started at 16:00 Hong Kong Time (UTC+8),[35] Piquet and his teammate Turvey made clean getaways and maintained first and second on the straight heading into the first turn.

[36] López ran wide leaving the first corner, made minor contact with the turn's barrier, allowing teammate Bird and Buemi to overtake him.

[1][40] At the end of the first lap Piquet led from teammate Turvey, who was followed in turn, by Bird, Buemi, López, Heidfeld, Rosenqvist, Duval, Vergne and Abt.

[20][31] Both di Grassi and Abt were shown a black flag with an orange circle, requiring both drivers to make pit stops for car repair.

[43] Vergne dropped down the order when his car developed a water pump battery failure and had to make an unscheduled pit stop to move into his second vehicle on lap nine.

[31][32][37] An electrical issue was discovered on Evans' second car during his pit stop and his team elected to retire him on the same lap to prevent further damage.

[31] Bird was fast enough to unlap himself by passing the race leaders,[32] despite spinning his tyres at the circuit's low-speed exit turns,[37] and finished 13th.

[47] Second-place finisher di Grassi spoke of his delight with the result and that his race had been "crazy" which demonstrated that this team they did not stop and it was "a great start" to his season.

He claimed that the incident with López may have happened to any other driver but was looking forward to the season's next race where he hoped to qualify well and his team were going to keep pushing.

[50] Bird was disappointed with the result, saying it was beneficial if the technical problems with his second car at the pit stop were diagnosed in the season's first race rather than later on.

[51] His teammate López thanked the sport's fans for voting him to receive the FanBoost and was upbeat despite retiring from his first event: "The car is fast and I think qualifying proved that.

[44] As this was the first race of the season, Buemi led the Drivers' Championship with 25 points, seven ahead of di Grassi in second, who in turn, was a further three in front of the third-placed Heidfeld.

[52] Despite negative press reviews about the Hong Kong ePrix, Agag reaffirmed his commitment to holding a race in the city and stated that he would not be discouraged by any financial losses incurred from the event.