Mercedes gets another Formula E pole with Vandoorne

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

Despite brushing the wall at the chicane as he completed his out-lap, Vandoorne gathered himself to produce a 1m26.494s effort.

UPDATE: Vandoorne loses pole over tyre infringement

That deposed reigning champion Antonio Felix da Costa’s DS Techeetah by 0.028s, and gave Vandoorne his fourth FE pole.

The second Mercedes of Nyck de Vries was third fastest, but will drop to eighth thanks to the penalty he incurred for triggering a multi-car crash in Rome a fortnight ago.

De Vries’ demotion will move practice pacesetter Maximilian Guenther’s BMW and group qualifying pacesetter Alex Lynn’s Mahindra up to the second row.

Sebastien Buemi may well have been ahead of both in his Nissan, but for a chicane lock-up that left him slowest in superpole.

With 23 of the 24 cars covered by just 0.845s in the extraordinarily close group qualifying stages, it didn’t take much of a deficit to put some big names well down the order.

Championship leader Sam Bird ending up only 21st on the grid was the headline among them, with his Jaguar team-mate Mitch Evans not much better off in 18th.

The Audis struggled too – Rene Rast and Lucas di Grassi down in 15th and 22nd respectively, while customer team Envision Virgin took 11th with Nick Cassidy and 16th with title contender Robin Frijns.

Double champion Jean-Eric Vergne could only manage 13th in the second DS Techeetah.

Porsche’s Andre Lotterer – who has still scored zero points this year – and unrewarded Rome hero Norman Nato (Venturi) came agonisingly close to reaching superpole. They’re elevated to sixth and seventh by de Vries’ penalty.

Lotterer’s team-mate Pascal Wehrlein starts 10th behind Oliver Rowland’s Nissan.

Qualifying Results