Santiago Formula E: Stunning final lap gives Evans and Jaguar pole
Mitch Evans scored his and Jaguar's second Formula E pole position ahead of the 2019-20 Santiago E-Prix in a qualifying session that claimed several high-profile scalps
GP2 race winner Evans topped group three to move into the superpole shootout and then set a 1m04.827s to beat BMW Andretti driver Maximilian Guenther to the top by 0.275 seconds.
Evans was last to run of the top six but pulled out an exceptional final sector that was fastest by 0.22s to storm to pole.
It had looked as though Guenther would grab his maiden series pole, having found 0.2s in the first and last sectors to move into the provisional lead by a massive 0.543s over Pascal Wehrlein.
The Mahindra driver was the first to run in superpole and posted a lap time slower than the group stages - only 12th quickest - thanks to the lack of a warm-up lap.
Behind a strong lap for the Venturi of Felipe Massa, Oliver Turvey (pictured above) lines up in fifth, having progressed through group four thanks to an impressive final sector in his unfavoured NIO 333 machine.
A slow final two sectors meant Sebastien Buemi was a muted sixth for Nissan e.dams, having progressed to superpole with third in the final and fastest group stage.
Venturi's Edoardo Mortara was an unlucky casualty and the first to miss out on the superpole shootout.
He was forced to pull out a stunning recovery on his flying lap - enough for him to provisionally sit on pole - after a hold up with group-two rival Robin Frijns.
A massive rear-end snap under braking spun Frijns around on the approach to Turn 1, where he was lucky to miss the tyre wall on the inside.
As he rejoined, the Envision Virgin Racing driver delayed Mortara by 0.4 seconds.
Despite a strong final sector, it still cost the former DTM driver his spot in the shootout for pole.
But it still meant both of the Venturis, which use customer powertrains, beat their Mercedes donors as Nyck de Vries led team-mate and group one candidate Stoffel Vandoorne for eighth and ninth.
Antonio Felix da Costa rounded out the top 10 ahead of his DS Techeetah stablemate Jean-Eric Vergne.
Neel Jani was the fastest Porsche in 12th. He beat Daniel Abt, Andre Lotterer and points leader Alexander Sims.
Wehrlein's team-mate Jerome D'Ambrosio suffered a powertrain failure exiting the final corner and so crawled across the line to just 20th.
Frijns' Turn 1 mistake dropped him to 21st ahead of Nissan driver Oliver Rowland.
He suffered a virtual carbon copy of Ma Qing Hua's practice shunt - losing the car on the run to Turn 5 and nerfing the wall.
Rowland was on his flying lap and just ahead of Lucas di Grassi on track.
The crash delayed Audi driver di Grassi, who then compounded his woes in his efforts to regain the lost time.
He arrived too fast into Turn 9 and was too deep to take to the exit road and so nosed into the exit barriers.
By the time he rejoined, all di Grassi could manage was 23rd - 21.5s off the pace.
After his practice crash, the second NIO car of Ma did not take part in the session.
Starting grid
Pos | Driver | Team | Car | Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Mitch Evans | Jaguar | Jaguar | 1m04.827s |
2 | Maximilian Guenther | BMW | BMW | 0.275s |
3 | Pascal Wehrlein | Mahindra | Mahindra | 0.818s |
4 | Felipe Massa | Venturi | Mercedes | 0.818s |
5 | Oliver Turvey | NIO | NIO | 0.961s |
6 | Sebastien Buemi | Nissan e.dams | Nissan | 0.982s |
7 | Edoardo Mortara | Venturi | Mercedes | 0.720s |
8 | Nyck de Vries | Mercedes | Mercedes | 0.733s |
9 | Stoffel Vandoorne | Mercedes | Mercedes | 0.739s |
10 | Antonio Felix da Costa | DS Techeetah | DS | 0.747s |
11 | Jean-Eric Vergne | DS Techeetah | DS | 0.798s |
12 | Neel Jani | Porsche | Porsche | 0.869s |
13 | Daniel Abt | Audi | Audi | 0.918s |
14 | Andre Lotterer | Porsche | Porsche | 0.974s |
15 | Alexander Sims | BMW | BMW | 1.021s |
16 | Sam Bird | Virgin | Audi | 1.059s |
17 | Brendon Hartley | Dragon | Penske | 1.299s |
18 | James Calado | Jaguar | Jaguar | 1.478s |
19 | Nico Muller | Dragon | Penske | 1.540s |
20 | Jerome d'Ambrosio | Mahindra | Mahindra | 2.865s |
21 | Robin Frijns | Virgin | Audi | 4.262s |
22 | Lucas di Grassi | Audi | Audi | 21.699s |
23 | Oliver Rowland | Nissan e.dams | Nissan | 13.412s |
24 | Ma Qinghua | NIO | NIO | - |
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