De Vries grabs first Formula E pole in Diriyah

Mercedes’ Nyck de Vries claimed his first ABB FIA Formula E World Championship pole as he carried his commanding practice form into qualifying for the Diriyah opener.

De Vries had been fastest in both practice sessions, topped group qualifying despite being in the second group of cars to run, and then crushed his superpole rivals by 0.664s with a 1m08.157s pole lap.

Pascal Wehrlein joins de Vries on the front row in his first race for Porsche, narrowly pipping Audi’s triple DTM champion Rene Rast to the spot.

Mercedes’ customer team Venturi had been second fastest in the group stages of qualifying thanks to Edoardo Mortara, but his messy superpole lap was only good enough for fourth.

Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa and DS Techeetah team-mate Jean-Eric Vergne ended up down in 18th and 19th.

Last year’s championship top six had the worst of the track conditions as usual as they ran in group one, but the Techeetah pair, Sebastien Buemi and Lucas di Grassi didn’t make life any easier for themselves by almost tripping over each other as they ran in a tight quartet.

Buemi’s Nissan e.dams team-mate Oliver Rowland hung back to get a clear track and ended up topping the group by eight tenths of a second and qualifying 10th.

The second Mercedes of 2019/20 finale winner Stoffel Vandoorne charged off solo in group one but couldn’t match Rowland and will start 15th ahead of di Grassi and Buemi.

Those drivers were all set to be three places worse off before group four runners Nico Mueller, Nick Cassidy and Tom Blomqvist had their times deleted for not respecting yellow flags brought out by Sergio Sette Camara crashing.

Sette Camara’s Dragon Penske team-mate Mueller – who’d crashed himself in the earlier practice session – and Envision Virgin’s rookie Cassidy had been set for superpole places had their laps stood, while Blomqvist had put NIO333 an impressive seventh.

Instead, Cassidy, Blomqvist and Mueller start 20th through 22nd ahead of Sette Camara and Robin Frijns, who missed qualifying completely as his Envision Virgin-run Audi required a battery change after his practice accident.

The lap deletions gave Mahindra’s Alex Lynn and Jaguar driver Mitch Evans surprise spots in superpole, though they couldn’t get higher than fifth and sixth.

Evans’s new Jaguar team-mate Sam Bird makes his debut for the team from eighth on the grid, just behind the second Porsche of Andre Lotterer.

BMW had a muted start to its final Formula E season, with Maximilian Guenther and Jake Dennis qualifying ninth and 14th.

Qualifying Results