Dennis cuts Cassidy’s Formula E points lead with Rome pole

Jake Dennis cut into Nick Cassidy’s Formula E championship lead by defeating him in a tense final duel in qualifying for the second Rome E-Prix of the weekend.

Avalanche Andretti’s Dennis went head-to-head with his main title rival Cassidy in the final and ended up triumphing by just 0.07s to scoop the three bonus points to cut Cassidy’s points lead from five to two points.

Dennis beat Maserati’s Maximilian Guenther and Nissan’s Norman Nato on his way to his final showdown with Cassidy who had swept aside third in the points Mitch Evans and NIO 333’s Dan Ticktum on his way to the final.

It’s the perfect recovery for Dennis who lost three points in yesterday’s opening race when his Andretti team miscalculated his energy strategy.

Nato’s semi final effort was faster than Evans’ meaning he’ll start the second race from third ahead of Evans who admitted “he lost some pace” compared to final practice.

Sam Bird topped his qualifying group before allowing Jaguar team-mate Evans to beat him in their quarter final duel as Bird lifted off before the start/finish line – “team orders took place” Bird confirmed after the duel.

Bird’s time was still the fastest of the four quarter final losers meaning he’ll start from fifth place after a long night for his Jaguar team following the Bird-triggered multi-car pile-up in Saturday’s opening race.

Maserati’s Guenther, who completed the podium yesterday, was next fastest and should line up in sixth place ahead of Ticktum.

Sebastien Buemi nosed his Envision-run Jaguar into the barriers during his quarter final duel with Nato. He was able to recover but he unsurprisingly had the slowest time of the losers and will start eighth.

Guenther’s team-mate Edoardo Mortara was the fastest of those drivers who didn’t make it through to the duels and will start from ninth place ahead of Porsche’s Antonio Felix da Costa and McLaren’s Jake Hughes who had to miss Saturday’s race after a qualifying shunt.

DS Penske’s Jean-Eric Vergne will start from 12th ahead of the second McLaren of Rene Rast and Mahindra’s Lucas di Grassi.

Pascal Wehrlein, 31 points adrift of the points lead, suffered another hit to his title hopes as he qualified down in 15th place.

Qualifying Results