Rowland bags pole, Formula E champions in timing fiasco

Oliver Rowland took pole position for the penultimate round of the Formula E season in Berlin, in a dramatic session where the series’ four active champions failed to set times.

The Nissan e.dams driver was third to run in superpole and he edged out Robin Frijns (Envision Virgin) and Neel Jani (Porsche), who were both within a tenth of a second of his 1m15.955s pole time.

New Audi driver Rene Rast, who was fastest during group qualifying, ended up fourth on the grid, with fellow late call-ups Alex Lynn (Mahindra) and Tom Blomqvist – the latter making his first appearance of the season for Jaguar – completing the top six runners in superpole.

The real drama of the session came in the first group of qualifying, featuring the top six drivers in the championship.

Only Max Guenther and Mitch Evans managed to set times – 0.001 seconds apart – as DS Techeetah team-mates Antonio Felix da Costa and Jean-Eric Vergne, plus Audi’s Lucas di Grassi and Nissan’s Sebastien Buemi, all failed to cross the line to start their laps before time ran out.

Those four drivers were determined to be last across the line due to concerns about track evolution, with Formula E’s qualifying format already putting them at a disadvantage by forcing them into the first group.

However, their teams left it too late to release them from the pits, and as it became apparent they could miss the cut a scramble broke out in the final few corners of the lap.

Di Grassi and da Costa made contact in the penultimate corner, although da Costa claimed afterwards that by then he’d already been made aware they weren’t going to make it.

Incredibly, this isn't race action – it's from qualifying! #BerlinEPrix #SeasonSixFinale pic.twitter.com/xPw3dDnwx8

— ABB FIA Formula E World Championship (@FIAFormulaE) August 12, 2020

Audi was unhappy because it felt it was the first to realise the situation and the DS Techeetah drivers were blocking the track and delaying di Grassi, but new champion da Costa dismissed any suggestions of gamesmanship.

The four drivers will now have to make a special application to be allowed to race, and will all line up at the back of the grid.

Behind the superpole runners, Porsche’s Andre Lotterer was next fastest in seventh, sharing the fourth row of the grid with Venturi’s Felipe Massa.

Newcomer Sergio Sette Camara (Dragon) was the fourth runner from the final group of qualifying to make the top 10, just ahead of Edoardo Mortara (Venturi).

Behind them, Nico Muller (Dragon) was 11th, while Oliver Turvey’s lap to go 12th for the backmarker NIO333 was an impressive effort that showed how much the track improved during the session.

That point was further backed up by Guenther and Evans’ efforts from the dramatic first segment only putting the latter 13th and the former 16th due to a grid penalty for his collision with Turvey in the previous race.

While Rowland had progressed into superpole from group two, a lot of his rivals from the same session didn’t fare so well – with Alexander Sims and Sam Bird completing the top 15, and Mercedes team-mates Stoffel Vandoorne and Nyck de Vries 18th and 19th-fastest respectively.

Qualifying Results