Vergne turns form around with pole, da Costa only ninth

Defending Formula E champion Jean-Eric Vergne stole pole position for the Berlin E-Prix with a blistering time of 1m06.277s, interrupting team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa’s run.

Vergne was the final car to run in the superpole segment of qualifying – having blitzed the rest of the field with his run earlier in the session – and beat BMW’s Maximilian Guenther by half a second.

Guenther was on course for his first-ever Formula E pole position as he set the lap time to beat in superpole, but it wasn’t enough to hold off the storming pace of the DS Techeetah, with Vergne battling back from a miserable showing on the reversed-track on Wednesday and Thursday.

Jerome d’Ambrosio – who topped the times in the morning practice session – will line up third on the grid for Mahindra, which was the only team to get both cars into superpole with Alex Lynn set to line up fifth in only his third appearance for the team.

Mercedes’ Stoffel Vandoorne demonstrated imperious pace in the first group qualifying stage – keeping championship favourite da Costa away from the top of the timesheets, which eventually meant the DS Techeetah driver failed to make superpole for the first time since Mexico City in February.

A big lock-up and oversteer on the exit of Turn 6 in the superpole segment meant Vandoorne was unable to challenge for pole and will line-up fourth on the grid.

Envision Virgin’s Robin Frijns completed the superpole set and will start from sixth.

Porsche’s Andre Lotterer qualified seventh after being pushed out of the leading superpole group by Lynn.

Mercedes driver Nyck de Vries was eighth ahead of Da Costa, who was shuffled out of superpole by d’Ambrosio, but de Vries faces a five-place grid penalty for trying to push his car off the track in Thursday night’s race.

Oliver Rowland completed the top 10 for Nissan.

Previous champions Lucas di Grassi and Sebastien Buemi were left out of position in the session and will start 11th and 15th respectively.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans – who had been in contention for the title on the approach to the season finale – also had a miserable session and will start from 19th on the grid.

Qualifying Results