Lynn snatches pole in wet London Formula E qualifying

Alex Lynn claimed his first Formula E pole position for four years, topping qualifying for the first of two races at the London E-Prix venue.

Overnight rain showers led to a part-damp, part-dry ExCel Arena circuit – with half of the track indoors and the other outdoors – and this gifted an advantage to those drivers running in the later groups.

Superpole was entirely made up of drivers from the third and fourth groups – the drivers in the bottom half of the championship standings.

Mahindra’s Lynn hasn’t been on an FE pole since his debut weekend at the 2017 New York E-Prix double-header.

But he placed second in group qualifying and then was fastest in superpole with a 1m23.245s, almost three tenths quicker than BMW i Andretti’s Jake Dennis.

The 2015/16 champion Sebastien Buemi qualified in third place for Nissan e.dams, ahead of Dragon Penske Autosport’s Sergio Sette Camara.

Porsche’s Andre Lotterer topped group qualifying but could only manage fifth place in superpole, while Venturi’s Norman Nato rounded out the top six.

Lucas di Grassi, who is 27 points off the championship lead in 12th place, just missed out on a place in superpole in seventh place, edging out Alexander Sims by just 0.020s.

Nyck de Vries delivered a stellar lap to secure ninth place on the grid, one place ahead of Dragon Penske Autosport’s Joel Eriksson, who secured the best qualifying result of his Formula E career so far.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans qualified in 11th ahead of Porsche’s Pascal Wehrlein and Audi’s Rene Rast.

Edoardo Mortara was the quickest of the top six drivers in the championship, who had to run with the wettest of the track conditions.

He’ll start down in 16th place, ahead of his fellow title contenders Antonio Felix da Costa and Sam Bird.

Robin Frijns avoided repeating his FP2 shunt, but he could only manage the 22nd time, two places behind his Envision Virgin team-mate Nick Cassidy.

The damp outdoor section of the track caught out Maximilian Guenther, who lost control of his BMW i Andretti under braking into the Turn 16 attack mode activation hairpin and slammed into the wall.

There's a red flag in qualifying whilst @maxg_official's car is recovered from the track!

🇬🇧 2021 @Heineken #LondonEPrix | @BMWMotorsport

— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) July 24, 2021

The impact damaged the front left of the car and his team now faces a race against time to repair the BMW in time for the race.

Group three was red-flagged as a result of the crash and the other five drivers had to abandon their laps. The session later resumed.

Two-time champion Jean-Eric Vergne was slowest of the 23 drivers to set a proper time, and will start the first race from the back row of the grid alongside Guenther.

Qualifying Results