Vandoorne gives Mercedes another Formula E pole in Rome

Stoffel Vandoorne gave Mercedes its second pole of the 2021 ABB FIA Formula E World Championship season in qualifying for the Rome opener.

Mercedes has now taken pole in every FE qualifying session it has taken part in this year, following Nyck de Vries’ Diriyah race one top spot and the Mercedes then being barred from race two qualifying there after Edoardo Mortara’s practice crash.

Vandoorne’s 1m38.484s lap withstood attacks from Andre Lotterer’s Porsche and Oliver Rowland’s Nissan, with both just a little too ragged.

Lotterer picked up a section of an advertising banner during his lap yet still claimed second, while Rowland broke his suspension with a final-turn wall hit but was third quickest nevertheless.

On the final corner and on the cusp of taking pole, @oliverrowland1 clipped the barrier and damaged his @Nissanedams…

Find out how you can watch the #RomeEPrix where you live here >> https://t.co/sHOKGxvLZW pic.twitter.com/xJdOfIsxYL

— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) April 10, 2021

Lucas di Grassi was fourth for Audi, while DS Techeetah managed to repair Jean-Eric Vergne’s new 2021-spec car in time for qualifying after it was heavily damaged when Oliver Turvey slammed into Vergne and Jake Dennis in a bizarre crash during the FP1 practice starts.

Vergne’s rebuild required a change of gearbox, but Techeetah was able to use the one spare it can take without a penalty as its package is newly homologated for this race.

BMW’s Maximilian Guenther was sixth quickest but already had a five-place grid drop hanging over him for a collision with Tom Blomqvist in Diriyah so will fall to 11th.

Robin Frijns and points leader de Vries made it through from the first qualifying group to take seventh and eighth, with fellow championship frontrunner Sam Bird not far behind them in 11th. Pascal Wehrlein’s Porsche and Sebastien Buemi’s Nissan (despite a brush with the wall) prevented Diriyah race two winner Bird getting into the top 10.

Bird’s Jaguar team-mate Mitch Evans collected an advertising banner as he scraped the wall on his qualifying run, yet still managed to take 12th. That’s one place ahead of the man who was launched over his Jaguar in the horrific Diriyah crash – Alex Lynn in a replacement Mahindra.

A host of drivers ended up down the order thanks to problems either in qualifying or earlier in the day.

Reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa appeared to pick up damage on his qualifying lap and was 18th, Rene Rast’s Audi is 21st after slewing down an escape road and Nick Cassidy bashed the wall and ended up 22nd.

A last-minute technical problem at Venturi meant Edoardo Mortara ran out of time to do a flying lap in group one, so is set to start ahead of only the heavily penalised Turvey – if the NIO333 driver’s car is ready after the huge morning crash.

NIO333 did manage to get Blomqvist – who had his own much smaller practice shunt – out again, but he was only 19th quickest.

Qualifying Results